Journal of Management Vol. XX No. X, Month 2013 1-31 DOI: 10.1177/0149206312471388 @ The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permission: http://www. sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Destructive Leadership: A Theoretical Review. Integration, and Future Research Agenda
Dina V. Krasikova University of Nebraska-Lincoln Stephen G. Green James M. LeBreton Purdue University
In this article, we propose a framework for understanding destructive leadership that summarizes the extant destructive leadership research and extends it in new directions. By reviewing the curreni literature on destructive leadership and drawing on organizational leadership theory and the more general research on deviant behaviors in organizations, we identify the underlying features and mechanisms that define destructive leadership. Recognizing that each form of destructive leadership currently studied (e.g., abusive supervision, petty tyranny, and pseudo-transformational leadership) addresses aspects of destructive leadership but fails to capture the complete picture of the phenom- enon, we clarify the boundaries among the constructs studied within the domain of destructive leadership, address some ambiguities about the nature of destructive leadership, make explicit some characteristics of destructive leadership that set it apart from other forms of leading, and integrate this thinking into a theoretical model that helps us understand the manifestations of destructive leadership, and their antecedents and consequences.
Keywords: destructive leadership; destructive goals; influence; abusive supervision; deviant behaviors; counterproductive work behaviors
Researchers are increasingly paying attention to a variety of forms of leadership that have been characterized as being "destructive" (e.g., destructive leadership, abusive supervision,
Acknowledgments: The second author and the third author contributed equally to this article and are listed alpha- betically. The authors would like to thank Michelle K. Duffy, four anonyme ous reviewers, Kelly Schwind Wilson, and Robert B. Kaiser for their valuable comments on the earlier versions of this article. Corresponding author: Dina V. Krasikova, University of Nebraska--Lincoln, College of Business Administration, 1240 R Street, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA E-mail: dkrasikova2@unl.edu
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petty tyranny). A number of studies have been devoted to examining the dimensionality of such forms of leadership (Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007), identifying their antecedents and consequences (Tepper, 2000), and, to a lesser extent, proposing theoretical models explain- ing the nature of such leadership (Einarsen, Aasland, & Skogstad, 2007; Wang, Sinclair, & Deese, 2010). Despite the fact that research on these forms of leadership has grown in the past few years, it is still plagued with three problems: (a) the lack of a unified definition of "destructive" leadership that would clarify boundaries of the construct and distinguish it from the related phenomena, (b) a multiplicity of constructs used to describe the phenome- non of "destructive" leading (e.g., abusive supervision, petty tyranny, pseudo-transforma- tional leadership, personalized charismatic leadership, strategic bullying, and managerial tyranny), and (c) the lack of the unified theoretical framework (cf. Tepper, 2007) based on a shared understanding of what destructive leadership is and what it is not. These problems reinforce each other and impede efficient scientific communication, progress of empirical research, and accumulation of knowledge about psychological processes underlying "destructive" leadership. Consequently, the purpose of this articl