Destructive forms of leadership: The effects of abusive supervision and incivility on employee health and safety

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between abusive supervision and employee health and safety outcomes in Study 1 and to examine the effect of inconsistent leadership, operationalized as the interaction between transformational leadership and supervisor incivility, on employee safety participation in Study 2.

In Study 1, survey data were gathered from n=145 healthcare workers. In Study 2, survey data were gathered from n=177 nurses.

A partially mediated structural model was estimated in Study 1 and the results show that the model provided a good fit to the data χ² (1)=1.27, p=0.23. Abusive supervision predicted safety climate (β=−0.41, p<0.01) and psychological health (β=−0.27, p<0.01). Safety climate, in turn, predicted psychological health (β= 0.40, p<0.01) and safety participation (β= 0.37, p<0.01). Study 2: moderated regression analysis showed that inconsistent leadership significantly predicted employee safety participation, F(5,144)=4.46, p<0.01.

Theoretical and practical implications for creating psychologically healthy workplaces through interventions aimed at improving leader effectiveness are discussed.