Reconceptualising abusive leadership behaviours, and their impact on employee wellbeing: a novel measurement approach (Ref: LB25-NB-unfunded)

Prior research on leadership suffers from construct inadequacy. Thus, while it has drawn conclusions on how leadership can facilitate effectiveness, these may be erroneous given the flawed conceptualisation and measurement of leadership. The proposed project draws on leading research (Fischer and Sitkin, 2023) which suggests that existing measurement tools for assessing leadership generally, including abusive leadership specifically, conflate behavioural judgements with evaluative judgements. This poses a major problem for the field and practitioners.

For example, existing measures suffer from being double barrelled, subject to interpretation, and most importantly, being non-behavioural in nature (Fischer, 2023). More specifically, measurement of abusive leadership behaviour conflates assessments of behaviour with underlying intentions, motives and effects. It is therefore unclear, if it is in fact abusive leadership behaviour, or subjective evaluations, which determine outcomes (Mackey et al., 2017). Any conclusions drawn on the effects of leader behaviour on outcomes, such as wellbeing, are as a result flawed. We thus currently lack understanding on how behaviours of abusive leadership themselves affect employee outcomes, such as wellbeing.

To remedy this, the proposed project aligns with best practice on the development of more appropriate measurement tools which have clear behavioural counterfactuals, in order to more readily allow examination of the effects of leader behaviour on important employee outcomes (Fischer, 2023). To do this, we employ rigorous quantitative methods, and a mixed methods approach to scale development, to capture experiences of abusive leadership behaviours at work, which will be fed into the development of a new measurement tool. Daily diary studies (Gabriel et al., 2019) will be used to validate the measurement tool and investigate the implications of abusive leadership for employee wellbeing.

Theoretically, it is anticipated that a rigorously developed behavioural measurement tool for abusive leadership will be widely adopted by researchers within the field who are privy to the aforementioned concerns. Practically, given the detrimental effects abusive supervision could have for employee wellbeing (Fischer et al., 2021), effective measurement will allow us to better capture what abusive leadership looks like in organisations, so that we can diagnose and subsequently remedy the problematic behaviours through evidence-based leadership interventions, before their harmful impact transpires.

The overall aims of the proposed PhD study are to:

1. Explore and identify the behavioural manifestation of abusive leadership.
2. Develop and validate a novel and robust measurement tool for assessing incidence of abusive leadership in organisations, in order to address previous major shortcomings (eg conflation of behaviours with their effects on outcomes).
3. Examine the predictors and effects of abusive leadership behaviours on employee wellbeing.

94% of Loughborough’s research impact is rated world-leading or internationally excellent. REF 2021

Supervisors

• Primary supervisor: Dr Nishat Babu
• Secondary supervisors: Dr Erik Dietl, Professor Alexandros Psychogios

Entry requirements

At least a 2:1 honours degree (or equivalent) with a UK master’s degree (with an average programme mark of no less than 65%) or international equivalent.

English language requirements

Applicants must meet the minimum English language requirements. Loughborough Business School requires a minimum IELTS band 7.0 or above with not less than 7.0 in each component. Further details are available on the international website.

Tuition fees for 2025-26 entry

• UK fee – To be confirmed Full-time degree per annum
• International fee – £22,360 Full-time degree per annum

How to apply

1. Put together your research proposal (between 2,500 to 3,000 words including references). Share your research proposal with the identified supervisor(s) and confirm they are willing to be named in support of your application. You are also encouraged to ask for feedback to develop your research proposal.
2. All applications should be made online. Under programme name, select ‘Business School’. Please upload with your application a research proposal, copies of your transcripts/certificates, English language certificate and contact details of two academic references, one of which must be from your most recent degree. Please quote the project reference number: LB25-NB-unfunded.

To avoid delays in processing your application, please ensure that you submit the minimum supporting documents.

The selection criteria will be used by academic schools to help them take a decision on your application.

Apply now