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Exploring the Influence of Abusive and Ethical Leadership on Supervisor and Coworker-Targeted Impression Management

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Abstract

The present study was conducted to explore the association between abusive supervision and ethical leadership and employees’ use of workplace impression management (IM) behavior. We investigated five assertive and three defensive IM behaviors and distinguished between IM directed at supervisors versus coworkers. Analysis of data from 288 working adults suggests that self-promotion, exemplification, and apologies were more frequently directed toward supervisors, while supplication, intimidation, ingratiation, and excuses were more frequently directed toward coworkers. Abusive supervision was associated with increased self-promotion, supplication, exemplification, intimidation, justifications, and excuses. Ethical leadership was associated with reduced intimidation, justifications, and excuses. Leader role modeling was a moderator strengthening the positive association between abusive supervision and supplication, intimidation, and excuses, while strengthening the negative association between ethical supervision and excuses. These findings and their implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. We do not hypothesize differential effects for leadership on supervisor versus coworker-targeted IM because leadership is expected to set the overall tone for permissive workplace behavior. However, we will examine this separately in analyses to determine if the pattern of relations differ. Bias toward greater use of positive supervisor-targeted strategies is expected regardless of leadership style.

  2. EFA was used to examine the factor structure of the measure. Using SPSS to run a principal axis EFA, results indicated that there were two factors with eigenvalues exceeding 1 (factor 1 eigenvalue = 2.85, factor 2 = 1.08); however, we received an error message that due to communality exceeding 1—two factors could not be extracted. To follow up, we conducted EFA using principal axis factoring specifying a one-factor solution. This factor explained 57.06% of the variance with item loadings that ranged from .60 (item 1) to .72 (item 2). Looking at the reliability of the five items as a scale, corrected item-total correlations do not fall below .52 and the reliability (as measured by Cronbach’s alpha) drops from .80 if any of the items are deleted.

  3. CFAs testing the dimensionality of IM were conducted using Mplus version 7.4 software (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2012) testing alternative one (IM as a general variable), two (assertive versus defensive IM), four (positive and negative assertive versus positive and negative defensive), and eight-factor solutions, which showed an eight-factor solution to be the best fit to the data for both supervisor and coworker-targeted IM (see Table 2). Fit indices met recommended CFI values above .95 and SRMR and RMSEA values ≤ .08 (Hu & Bentler, 1999). These findings can be made available from the authors on request.

  4. We analyzed alternative models comparing treatment of supervisor and coworker IM as separate versus combined. Due to sample size, all indicators were parceled by content (Landis, Beal, & Tesluk, 2000) and parcels were loaded onto their proposed latent factor with one factor representing each measured variable in the study. The full measurement model for supervisor-targeted analyses met acceptable fit criteria (χ2(244) = 495.97, p < .001, χ2/df = 2.03, CFI = .95, SRMR = .04, RMSEA = .06, 90% CI [.05, .07]). The full measurement model for coworker-targeted analyses also met acceptable fit criteria (χ2(244) = 486.80, p < .001, χ2/df = 2.00, CFI = .95, SRMR = .05, RMSEA = .06, 90% CI [.05, .07]). A combined measurement model demonstrated a significantly poorer fit to the data (χ2(764) = 2914.38, p < .001, χ2/df = 3.81, CFI = .81, SRMR = .06, RMSEA = .10, 90% CI [.10, .10]).

  5. Although CFA and the findings from this paper demonstrate important distinctions between different IM tactics, we explored a more parsimonious model by assessing the influence of abusive and ethical leadership on a combined overall measure of IM tactics averaging across IM scales. Results showed the general trends reported in our “Results” replicated, including a positive association between abusive supervision and both supervisor-targeted IM (β = .434, p < .001) and coworker-targeted IM (β = .498, p < .001). There was a significant interaction between abusive supervision and role modeling for supervisor-targeted (β = .180, p = .001) and coworker-targeted tactics (β = .224, p < .001). There was also a negative association between ethical leadership and overall supervisor-targeted IM (β = − .079, p = .006) and coworker-targeted IM (β = − .074, p = .016). However, interactions were not significant for ethical leadership with role modeling for supervisor-targeted (β = − .040, p = .109) or coworker-targeted tactics (β = − .024, p = .357).

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Funding

This study was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (1029477).

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, N.W., Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada

    Eden-Raye Lukacik & Joshua S. Bourdage

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  1. Eden-Raye Lukacik
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Correspondence to Eden-Raye Lukacik.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

Appendix

Appendix

Role Modeling Items

  1. 1.

    My supervisor holds a position of authority that gives them the power to reward or discipline those that work under them.

  2. 2.

    I follow my supervisor’s lead when considering what behavior is appropriate at work.

  3. 3.

    I act by my supervisor’s example.

  4. 4.

    I pay attention to how my supervisor behaves in the workplace.

  5. 5.

    I notice how my supervisor acts toward other employees.

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Lukacik, ER., Bourdage, J.S. Exploring the Influence of Abusive and Ethical Leadership on Supervisor and Coworker-Targeted Impression Management. J Bus Psychol 34, 771–789 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-018-9593-2

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