Where does abusive supervision collide?

Tepper's 2000 Consequences of abusive supervision defined abusive supervision as a subordinate's sustained perception that their supervisor engages in hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviour, stopping short of physical contact: ridicule, put-downs, the silent treatment, taking undue credit, and broken promises. It is treated as a perception held over time rather than a single incident, and Tepper's 2007 Abusive supervision in work organizations review gathered a fast-growing body of studies under that one label. The construct names hostile treatment flowing down a reporting line, and it overlaps heavily with the other labels on this page: petty tyranny, supervisor undermining, and destructive or toxic leadership all describe much the same conduct under different names.[1][2]

Unit

One subordinate's standing perception of a supervisor's hostility

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Tepper's 15-item abusive supervision scale, rated by the subordinate

Ashforth's 1994 Petty tyranny in organizations described the petty tyrant as a manager who lords their power over others through arbitrariness and self-aggrandisement, belittling subordinates, showing a lack of consideration, and using an authoritarian, punitive style. Ashforth drew the label from an organizational-behaviour tradition and gave it its own six-factor measure, framing it around the abuse of positional power rather than around what the subordinate perceives. The behaviours he catalogued, arbitrary rule, public humiliation, and discouraging initiative, are the same hostile supervisory acts that Tepper later grouped as abusive supervision, so the two labels name largely one thing from two starting points.[3]

Unit

A manager's tyrannical, power-abusing conduct toward subordinates

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Ashforth's petty tyranny scale, six behavioural dimensions

Duffy, Ganster, and Pagon's 2002 Social undermining in the workplace defined undermining as behaviour intended, over time, to hinder a target's ability to build good relationships, succeed at work, and keep a favourable reputation: the silent treatment, belittling ideas, withholding information, and spreading criticism. They separated undermining that comes from a supervisor from undermining that comes from coworkers, and it is the supervisor-source variant that sits beside the other labels here. That supervisor undermining covers nearly the same downward hostility as abusive supervision and petty tyranny, though Duffy and colleagues cast it in terms of an intent to harm the target's standing rather than the target's perception of hostility.[4]

Unit

Intent-based acts by a supervisor that erode a subordinate's standing

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Duffy and colleagues' social undermining scale, supervisor-source items

Einarsen, Aasland, and Skogstad's 2007 Destructive leadership behaviour defined destructive leadership as repeated conduct by a leader that violates the legitimate interests of the organization or of subordinates, and Padilla, Hogan, and Kaiser's 2007 The toxic triangle placed a destructive, or toxic, leader alongside susceptible followers and a conducive environment. These frameworks sit one level up: they describe a broad class of harmful leadership of which hostility toward subordinates is only one part, running alongside harm aimed at the organization itself. The follower-directed portion of destructive and toxic leadership is the same conduct that abusive supervision, petty tyranny, and supervisor undermining each name in full, so the labels overlap without lining up exactly.[5][6]

Unit

A leader's repeated harmful conduct toward followers or the organization

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Behavioural taxonomies and toxic-leadership inventories rating harmful leader acts