Examining the impact of uncivil subordinates on leader well-being : needs frustration in male and female leaders

Abstract

Drawing on workplace mistreatment, self-determination theory, and gender and leadership literatures, I investigated whether subordinate incivility impacts leader well-being, whether this relationship was mediated by relatedness and competence needs frustration, and whether these mediation effects were stronger for females than for males. As the majority of the research exploring subordinate incivility to date is correlational, my study addressed causality through a laboratory experiment (N = 109) by manipulating subordinate incivility using email communication. Results revealed that subordinate incivility decreased leader well-being via lower positive affect and higher negative affect. For negative affect, this effect was stronger for males than females. Further, the relationship between subordinate incivility and leader well-being was equally explained by relatedness needs frustration for both genders. However, only male leaders treated uncivilly experienced greater competence needs frustration, leading to lower well-being. Study limitations, implications, and future research directions are discussed.