Subordinate Poor Performance as a Stressor on Leader Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Abusive Supervision and the Moderating Role of Motives for Abuse

Drawing upon Stress-as-Offense-to-Self theory, we develop a moderated mediation model whereby subordinate poor performance and leader well-being is linked by abusive supervision and this mediated relationship is further moderated by leaders' motives for abuse. Specifically, we posit that higher performance promotion motives will attenuate, whereas higher injury motives will exacerbate the relationship between abusive supervision and leader emotional exhaustion, due to their differential implications for leaders' ability to see themselves in a positive light. In a pilot study, we first examined and found support for the theorized mediation chain in a multiwave field study of organizational leaders (N = 71). In Study 1, we conducted a multiwave and multisource field study of leader-follower dyads (N = 274), which supported our predictions that the indirect effect between subordinate poor performance and leader emotional exhaustion via abusive supervision was strengthened for leaders higher on injury motives. In Study 2, we undertook a 2-week daily diary study with leaders (N = 129) to hone in on the latter half of our model, focusing on within-person dynamics linking abusive supervision and leader well-being and the moderating role of leader motives for abuse. Although the within-person relationship between abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion was positive within a given day across leaders, the lagged within-person relationship between abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion unfolded differently for leaders higher versus lower on injury motives. Namely, abusive supervision had a lingering detrimental effect on leader emotional exhaustion among leaders higher on injury motives.