Psychological abuse and organisational leadership Cover Image
  • Price 4.50 €

Abuzul psihologic si leadershipul organizational
Psychological abuse and organisational leadership

Author(s): Nicoleta-Mihaela Cramaruc
Subject(s): Psychology
Published by: EDITURA POLIROM S.A.
Keywords: mobbing; workplace bullying; bully leaders; poor leadership; conflict

Summary/Abstract: A growing literature explores nonphysical forms of hostility as mobbing or indirect bullying perpetrated by leaders/ managers against their employees. Leadership is undoubtedly one of the most potential stressors in the workplace because leaders may be abusive, aggressive, punitive or may simply lack appropriate leadership skills which creates a dysfunctional environment. As a consequence, leaders are frequently seen as perpetrators and so the mobbed employees are reporting either dissatisfaction towards the organizational leadership, the presence of managers with low tolerance of ambiguity or an authoritarian management, insufficient information provided by the managers which endangers the mutual solving of conflicts or a low level of managers’ conscientiousness and agreeableness. Leaders do not necessarily have the best interests of the organization in mind when they make decisions and, thus, they become destructive, make decisions for their own good and their leadership behavior could be tyrannical, derailed or supportive-disloyal. Specific destructive leadership behaviors are not only the active and displayed ones, but also the passive and indirect as the leaders’ incapacity to make the employees feel save or to give them the needed feedback because they don’t have the skills of a transformational leadership. So tipical behaviors for mobbing do not depend on the lack of a positive leadership but on the negative character of the behavior itself and on the presence of a poor leadership. Not only an authoritarian leadership may stimulate the mobbing behavior but also the laissez-faire style that is characterized by the lack of leaders’ involvment in the decision-making process, by the total absence of the leadership or the neglect of responsabilities deriving from his hierarchical position. The association between mobbing and the lack of leaders’ involvment and intervention creates the impresion of a tolerant organizational environment and that perpetrators are allowed to harass. It can also be explored the implications and potential consequences of strategic leader mobbing behavior, potentially producing positive outcomes. So mobbing leadership could be also seen as a strategic mechanism of influence justified, on one hand, by the idea that survives only the strongest one and, on the other hand, by the leaders’ need to achieve his personal or organizational goals, to keep his positive reputation and to stimulate organizational performance.

  • Issue Year: 2010
  • Issue No: 26
  • Page Range: 99-112
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Romanian