What is it about?
This study shows that leadership style of supervisors relates to counterproductive behaviors (behaviors that can harm organizations and people in organizations) in subordinates. Supervisors who are passive have subordinates who experience more negative emotion at work and perform less of this behavior. Supervisors who are transformational (are supportive and provide a vision for the organization) have subordinates who experience fewer negative emotions and engage in less of this behavior. Job stress models are tested suggesting that negative emotion plays an important role in the process leading to counterproductive behavior.
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Why is it important?
Counterproductive work behavior can have a serious detrimental effect on organizations and people. A better understanding of the role leaders play can suggest targets for interventions that might reduce this negative behavior.
Perspectives
In this study we used two sources of data (self-reports and coworker-reports) to control for potential biases that might exist by using a single source. Although using a second source can attenuate relationships in many cases, it is important to verify results from single source self-report studies. In this case we find that coworker reports of leadership has smaller correlations in some cases, the pattern shows that coworker reports of supervisor leadership related to self-reports of counterproductive behavior and negative emotion. It should be kept in mind that each employees experiences with the same supervisor can be different, as shown by the line of research on leader-member exchange, so likely these cross-source correlations are somewhat under-estimated.
Professor Paul E Spector
University of South Florida
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Leadership, Interpersonal Conflict, and Counterproductive Work Behavior: An Examination of the Stressor-Strain Process, Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, July 2013, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/ncmr.12009.
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