Cascading effect of abusive leadership on employee and organizational outcome- A comprehensive meta analysis

Dark personality leaders are known for their detrimental effects in the workplace. Through comprehensive meta-analysis this paper analyzes the impact of abusive leadership on employee and organisational outcomes using 39 independent studies with a total of 32,909 participants. Using a Hunter-Schmidt methodology, we examined the associations between abusive leadership behaviours and outcome variables capturing employee well-being, organisational commitment, and job performance through a random-effects meta-analysis. The results indicate the expected abusive leadership is a negative predictor of employee-related outcomes, as well as job performance indicators and commitment towards the organisation. These findings have important implications for organisational policy, leadership training programs, and intervention tools to reduce the effects of abusive leadership in the workplace.