Business Review

Executive Summary

Many of us have had a bad interaction with a boss — for example, being yelled at or sworn at in front of others, not receiving credit for work, or being humiliated for a mistake. But what happens after this mistreatment? Researchers find that some leaders feel bad and try to make amends. Building on moral cleansing theory, which says that people seek to balance their moral and immoral actions and maintain their moral self-image around a desired equilibrium point, researchers conducted a pair of studies on 99 leaders and 140 direct reports in China over a period of two weeks. They asked leaders to assess their abusive behavior and emotional experience toward their staff, while the staff were asked to report on their leaders’ constructive behaviors. They found that abusive behaviors, such as starting an argument with, making fun of, or ignoring a direct report, made leaders feel guilty, which prompted them to pay more attention to their direct report and support them. But only certain leaders engaged in these reparative behaviors: those who frequently engaged in moral reflection and those who possessed moral courage to face past wrongdoings.

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Many of us have had a bad workplace interaction with a boss — for example, being yelled at or sworn at in front of others, receiving no credit for work that required serious effort or extra hours, or being humiliated for a past mistake. At best, such experiences can be frustrating and demotivating; at worst, they can lead to reduced productivity or even to someone deciding to quit.

But have you thought about how your boss might have felt after mistreating you? Did you notice a change in their behavior? It is common to assume that the boss would simply pretend that nothing happened or even quietly blame the employee for the outburst. The authority that bosses have at work could make them easily justify or excuse misbehaviors toward employees.

However, in a set of studies forthcoming in the Journal of Applied Psychology, we found that this is not necessarily true: Some leaders feel bad and try to make amends.

Our research was built on moral cleansing theory, which says that people seek to balance their moral and immoral actions and maintain their moral self-image around a desired equilibrium point. Behaving in immoral and norm-violating ways dampens one’s moral self-image, prompting people to engage in compensatory behaviors that subsequently “cleanse” the internal feelings of immorality and restore their moral image. For example, a 2014 study found that people who made an unethical decision were more likely to donate to charity.

Applying this theory to the context of leadership, we suggest that leaders’ verbal and nonverbal mistreatment of their staff (for example, making fun of subordinates, yelling or swearing at them, or otherwise behaving in a nasty or rude way) runs counter to two key components of moral concern — care and justice. Abusive behavior weakens leaders’ moral self-image, and to try to compensate for these transgressions, they engage in reparative behaviors toward abused staff.

To test this, we conducted a pair of studies sampling 99 leaders and 140 immediate followers in China over a period of two weeks. In the first study, 31 leaders and 72 direct reports from a real estate organization completed a survey at the end of each workday for 10 days. The leaders were asked to assess their own abusive behavior and emotional experience toward their staff, while the staff were asked to report on their leaders’ constructive behaviors that day. We found that this sample of leaders displayed similar levels of abusive supervision as those studied in past research.

We found that perpetrating abusive behaviors, such as starting an argument with, making fun of, or ignoring a direct report made leaders feel guilty, which in turn prompted leaders to pay more attention to the person and to engage in two types of behavior. One of these types was supportive, such as showing concern for the abused followers and looking out for their welfare, while the other was directive, such as clarifying work goals and role expectations, maintaining open channels of communication, and helping abused followers excel.

For our second study, 68 leaders from a footwear manufacturing company completed a survey at midday for 10 consecutive days to assess their abusive behavior and psychological experiences in the morning. Meanwhile, their direct reports completed a survey at the end of each workday to rate leaders’ reparative actions that had occurred in the afternoon.

Our analysis showed that in addition to feeling guilty after behaving abusively, leaders reported that they lost “moral credit” — a hallmark of decreased moral self-image — and thus subsequently displayed more of the types of supportive and directive reparative behaviors found in our first study.

Interestingly, we found that these results depend on two critical factors. First, abusive leaders only compensated for their prior wrongdoings when they had a high dispositional sensitivity to moral issues at work or when they frequently engaged in moral reflection (two traits we measured at the beginning of each study, before conducting the daily surveys). Second, abusive leaders who sought to make amends for their behavior also possessed moral courage to face their past wrongdoings and a strong willpower to uphold moral principles (both of which we also measured at the beginning of each study). In other words, only morally attentive and courageous leaders engaged in reparative actions after mistreating followers. We did not find evidence that the frequency of abusive behavior mattered — in other words, we didn’t see that leaders who yelled at employees more often would be less likely to feel bad and make up for their behavior. Rather, we found that leaders who scored low in moral attentiveness were less likely to make amends for their behavior.

Given these findings, we offer the following advice for dealing with abusive supervisors. For followers, our findings show that for some leaders, behaviors fluctuate from time to time. Those who are morally attentive and courageous may be abusive at one moment but then supportive and helpful later.

With that in mind, followers can learn to cope with occasional instances of abusive leader behavior. For example, rather than withdrawing from work or retaliating, they could seize the opportunity to have more-constructive conversations with their leaders and to encourage them to engage in more supportive and task-directive behaviors in the future. Our research suggests that many abusive leaders will respond constructively to these requests to compensate for their wrongdoings.

For leaders who behave abusively and feel immoral as a result, it can help to go the extra mile and perform more constructive leadership behaviors than normal. However, doing so takes time, attention, and resources that you could use to complete other tasks, reducing your overall work effectiveness. Our data doesn’t indicate whether such reparations make employees feel better after abusive outbursts. Hence, you should learn to establish consistently positive interactions with your followers.

Nevertheless, being a leader doesn’t mean that you will always behave appropriately. Sometimes, due to breakdowns of self-regulation or conflicts of interests, you might have occasional “blips.” Once these happen, you should find ways to apologize to your followers and to do something to make up for it. Doing so helps create a healthier work environment for your employees.

Our research also encourages organizations to implement training programs to help managers improve their leadership and interpersonal skills and curb abusive behavior in the first place. To bolster moral attentiveness, organizations could provide ethics training programs to encourage employees to regularly reflect on their misbehavior at work. Organizations can also establish standards for apologies and forgiveness by instituting policies that encourage employees to be morally courageous and to proactively make amends for any misbehavior.