Abusive Leaders or Master Motivators? “Abusive” is in the Eye of the Beholder

Leaders have been described as “abusive” when they continually behave toward their followers in ways that include hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Such leaders have also been called “petty tyrants” (Ashforth, 1994) and “brutal bosses” (Hornstein, 1996). Regardless of the label used to describe these leaders, their “abuse” is undesirable because, as numerous studies have shown, abusive supervision tends to be associated with various types of negative outcomes for employees and their organizations (see Tepper, 2007, for a review).