Is It Me or You? How Reactions to Abusive Supervision are Shaped by Leader Behavior and Follower Perceptions

Course overview

This course is based upon material published in Frontiers in Psychology and is available as an open access article. There is a growing interest in understanding how follower reactions toward abusive leadership are shaped by followers perceptions and attributions. Our studies add to the understanding of the process happening between different levels of leaders abusive behavior (from constructive leadership as control, laissez-faire, mild to strong abusive) and follower reactions. Specifically, we focus on the role of perception of abusive supervision as a mediator and attribution as a moderator of the relationship between leader abusive behavior and follower reactions. Follower reactions are defined in terms of exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect. Our findings show that avoidance of abusive supervision should be taken seriously and followers perception and suffering is not only due to subjective judgment but reflects actual differences in behavior. The research presented here can help leaders to better understand their own and the followers role in the perception of and reaction to abusive supervision. This course on abusive supervision is designed for social workers, professional counselors, psychologists, nurses, and substance abuse counselors, who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for beginning, intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop or increase their knowledge of follower perceptions of abusive supervision. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require clinical continuing education courses for license renewal. The course is based on a journal article which includes research. It contains statistical analysis and data that some clinicians enjoy reading and others do not. A major benefit of reading research-based articles for continuing education is they provide practitioners with the latest findings in their field. Authors: Schyns, Felfe, and Schilling Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information regarding abusive supervision behaviors and follower perceptions. Specifically, a professional will: Identify the most important predictor of reactions toward abusive supervision Recognize why some individuals react more strongly to perceptions of abusive supervision than others Distinguish follower characteristics that are more likely to result in the perception that leader behavior is abusive Citation: Schyns, B.; Felfe, J.; and Scholling J. Is It Me or You? How Reactions to Abusive Supervision Are Shaped by Leader Behavior and Follower Perceptions. Frontiers in Psychology 27 July 2018. DOI: 10.3389/psyg.2018.01309.