Abusive leadership and employee’s interpersonal interactions: the mediation effect of employee’s need for emotional help

Abusive supervision, a form of leader deviant behavior, is a destructive leadership style. It negatively impacts both its targets and the overall organization. This study, rooted in the conservation of resources theory, expands our understanding by the effects of abusive supervision on employee’s interpersonal interactions. We conducted a two-wave survey using convenience sampling of employees from different companies in China, employing established scales translated into Chinese. We obtained 176 matched responses from 200 distributed questionnaires (88% response rate) and conducted correlation analyses, OLS regression, mediation analysis and moderated mediation analysis. The results showed that abusive supervision was positively associated with employees’ need for emotional help (β = 0.226), which was further associated with greater interpersonal interactions (β = 0.271). The indirect effect was significant (95% CI = [0.0108, 0.1052]). This indirect association also varied by team trust, with a significant index of moderated mediation (β = 0.025, 95% CI = [0.0010, 0.0756]). This research contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the ramifications of abusive supervision by establishing a connection between such conduct and the interpersonal interactions of employees. Furthermore, it delineates several promising avenues for future investigation. The findings suggest that managerial training, supportive HR strategies, and organizational policies aimed at reducing abusive behaviors and fostering team trust can help transform employees’ emotional needs into constructive interpersonal engagement.