I Did Something Wrong: How and When Leaders Ruminate and Recover from Their Abusive Supervision

Abstract

Although prior studies have begun to focus on how employees recover from abusive supervision experiences, how leaders ruminate on and recover from their abusive supervision remains unclear. On the basis of cognitive theories of rumination, we propose that abusive supervision is linked to two forms of rumination after work (i.e., affect-focused rumination and problem-solving pondering), which subsequently influence leaders’ next-day work engagement. Specifically, we suggest that affect-focused rumination and problem-solving pondering will hinder and facilitate leaders’ next-day work engagement, respectively. We also identify the past focus and future focus of leaders as moderators in the relationship between abusive supervision and the two forms of rumination. Using an experience sampling methodology for 10 workdays with data from 59 leaders, we find that leaders’ abusive supervision hinders their next-day work engagement through affect-focused rumination, which is aggravated by past focus and mitigated by future focus. However, the problem-solving pondering path is not supported. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and proposing future research directions.