Transformational Leadership
The most suitable conceptual framework for supporting this study is James Burns’ transformational leadership theory, which the researcher developed in 1978. Transformational leadership has been defined as an “approach by which leaders motivate followers to identify with organizational goals and interests and perform beyond expectations” (Buil et al., 2019, p. 65). Interestingly, top universities globally usually have a transformative leadership style that directly influences organizational innovation (Li et al., 2018). Therefore, it is a sound practice to implement the guidelines of transformational leadership in the universities since it motivates creative thinking in the stakeholders.
Intellectual stimulation encompasses leaders’ ability to encourage employees to explore their creativity, innovate, and the capacity to challenge personnel and facilitate the development of new ideas. Recent research shows that transformational leadership is instrumental in enhancing employees’ innovative effort and creativity (Ng, 2017). As far as inspirational motivation is concerned, transformational leaders articulate their vision and inspire followers to share it and achieve this vision (Buil et al., 2019). Such leaders facilitate the enhancement of employees’ proactivity and adaptability, which positively influences their performance (Wang et al., 2017). Transformational leadership also contributes to developing a learning organization culture where employees share knowledge and innovate, enhancing their and organizational performance (Para-González et al., 2018). Companies also need to provide ongoing training to the staff to maintain the established culture.
Individualized consideration is critical for the effective use of transformational leadership. Employees’ performance improves when their needs are met, including the requirements in a specific amount of support from a transformational leader (Tepper et al., 2018). A sufficient or excessive amount of received transformational leadership positively impacts organizational citizenship and work attitudes. The increase in employees’ engagement and corporate citizenship is associated with developing a psychological attachment to a transformational leader (Sahu et al., 2018). These attachment types play a mediating role in employees’ engagement with different levels of exhaustion. Personnel engagement is lower when transformational leadership is low on days with high job demands (Breevaart & Bakker, 2018). A high level of transformational leadership on such days is a mediator of employees’ engagement.
At the same time, transformational leadership has a darker side because it can have adverse outcomes on certain aspects related to performance, motivation, and the working environment. For instance, this leadership paradigm can hinder employees’ thriving if associated with a moderate or high employee exhaustion level (Niessen et al., 2017). Inconsistent transformational leadership can also have mixed effects. For instance, transformational leadership does not correlate with employees’ creativity with a low level of perceived organizational support (Suifan et al., 2018). Therefore, it is critical to consider the diverse aspects and influences of transformational leadership.
Transformational Leadership and Abusive Supervision
Although the impact inconsistent transformational leadership has on performance at organizational and individual levels has received particular attention in academia, the relationship between transformational leadership and destructive forms of leadership is still under-researched. Leaders tend to alternate leadership styles, which have diverse effects on employees’ job performance, satisfaction, psychological well-being, creativity, and commitment (Mullen et al., 2018). Although transformational leadership contributes to enhancing safety participation, the positive influence of this working environment can be hindered when abusive supervision occurs. When leaders alternate transformational leadership and abusive supervision, employees feel higher stress levels and are less productive. Due to the damage to employees’ psychological well-being, their behavior can change to counterproductive, which will lead to adverse effects for the workplace atmosphere. According to Rice et al. (2018), abusive supervision makes employees feel unwelcome and increases turnover intentions. The abusive supervision may have two different sources that moderate the employees’ perceptions – the strategic source when the leader acts abusively due to their political skills, and the impulsive source when leaders are abusive due to their neuroticism.
Inconsistent transformational leadership can also lead to a change in employees’ engagement and performance daily (Huang et al., 2019). For instance, the personnel’s performance can be high on one day, while employees may be disengaged on another day depending on the leadership the supervisor uses. Sustained abusive leadership results in low morale, disengagement from current tasks, and low performance. Wang et al. (2020) found that employees’ silence is positively related to abusive leadership. The employees’ silence also proved to mediate the impact of abusive leadership on employees’ work engagement and job satisfaction.
Transformational leadership can have no mediating effect on employee performance if abusive supervision prevails and the former leadership style is occasionally utilized (Barling et al., 2018). Leaders often switch to different forms of leadership due to the availability of resources, and it has been found that autocratic leadership was influential in the presence of scarce resources. In contrast, abusive supervision had milder negative consequences compared to similar circumstances and the use of transformational leadership (Barling et al., 2018). According to Al-Hawari et al. (2020), employees’ silence is a consequence of abusive leadership. It can have a negative impact on the employees’ quality of service in customer-oriented businesses. At the same time, lower organizational customer orientation implies the more substantial adverse effects of abusive leadership.
The abusive behavior of ethical leaders can have rather adverse effects making subordinates more receptive to abusive supervision. Prior use of ethical leadership posed the focus on interactional justice that had a moderating impact on the relationship between abusive supervision and work outcomes (Wang & Chan, 2020). Inconsistent leadership tends to increase people’s need for interactional justice, and if abusive supervision frequency or magnitude grows, adverse workplace outcomes intensify. Noteworthy, Labrague et al. (2020) found that abusive leadership among nurses was positively related to low job satisfaction, absenteeism, psychological distress, and increased intention to leave the profession.
Individual characteristics and skills of the staff also play a significant role in their performance under such conditions. For example, employees with high levels of mindfulness perform better when transformational leadership is utilized. Still, they are also increasingly affected by abusive supervision, which has detrimental effects on their psychological well-being and performance (Walsh & Arnold, 2020). Therefore, employees’ mindfulness can result in their poor performance and job dissatisfaction, or total work engagement, if inconsistent leadership is utilized, depending on the used leadership style daily. These findings are consistent with the results of previous studies, which make researchers more attentive to inconsistent leadership and its outcomes. Simultaneously, the higher levels of employee psychopathy were associated with the higher stress resistance under the supervision of abusive leaders (Hurst et al., 2019). Scientists considered that these findings suggest that employees high in psychopathy may possess resources that help them perform in the stressful environment and mentioned that abusive leadership can still develop undesirable qualities in employees.
At the same time, Lange et al. (2018) found a positive relationship between leaders’ mindfulness and transformational leadership, while a negative relationship characterized the leader’s mindfulness and abusive supervision. An important observation was made that mindful leaders exert transformational leadership when addressing innovation-related incentives and individuals’ ideas or performance rather than team-based aspects. Finally, Choi et al. (2019) assert that abusive leadership decreases the effectiveness of the knowledge sharing between leaders and employees in the framework of the LMX leadership theory and, therefore, reduces the overall productivity.
References
Al-Hawari, M.A., Bani-Melhem, S., & Quratulain, S. (2020). Abusive supervision and frontline employees’ attitudinal outcomes: The multilevel effects of customer orientation. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 32(3), 1109-1129.
Choi, W., Kim, S. L., & Yun, S. (2019). A social exchange perspective of abusive supervision and knowledge sharing: Investigating the moderating effects of psychological contract fulfillment and self-enhancement motive. Journal of Business and Psychology, 34(3), 305-319.
Hurst, C., Simon, L., Jung, Y., & Pirouz, D. (2019). Are “bad” employees happier under bad bosses? Differing effects of abusive supervision on low and high primary psychopathy employees. Journal of Business Ethics, 158(4), 1149-1164.
Labrague, L. J., Nwafor, C. E., & Tsaras, K. (2020). Influence of toxic and transformational leadership practices on nurses’ job satisfaction, job stress, absenteeism, and turnover intention: A cross‐sectional study. Journal of Nursing Management, 28(5), 1104-1113.
Li, W., Bhutto, T. A., Nasiri, A. R., Shaikh, H. A., & Samo, F. A. (2018). Organizational innovation: the role of leadership and organizational culture. International Journal of Public Leadership. 14(1), 33-47.
Rice, D. B., Taylor, R., & Forrester, J. K. (2020). The unwelcoming experience of abusive supervision and the impact of leader characteristics: turning employees into poor organizational citizens and future quitters. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 29(4), 601-618.
Wang, C. C., Hsieh, H. H., & Wang, Y. D. (2020). Abusive supervision and employee engagement and satisfaction: the mediating role of employee silence. Personnel Review, 49(9), 1845-1858.