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Shrewd Calculation or Beautiful Illusion? Exploring the Relationship between Abusive Supervision, Follower
Perceived Leadership Effectiveness, and Supervisor-Directed Citizenship Behaviors: The Moderating Roles of
Supervisor Political Skills and Physical Attractiveness

(Isaacson, 2011; Stone, 2013). Paradoxically, even though these leaders engage in abusive
behaviors, some subordinates still view them as competent and effective leaders who
can lead the organization to success. Therefore, it seems that abusive supervision dos not
necessarily reduce perceived leader effectiveness.

Empirically, the limited evidence regarding abusive supervision-leader effectiveness
is also mixed. For example, although Wang, Restubog, Shao, Lu, and Van Kleef (2018)
find that abusive supervision is negatively related to leader effectiveness, Deng, Lam,

Guan, and Wang (2021) suggest that this relationship is not significant. Moreover,
Kim et al. (2022) find that the negative indirect effect of abusive supervision on leader
effectiveness via leader typically is not significant for male leaders. Theoretically, the
existing abusive supervision literature has largely applied the affective, relational, and
motivational mechanisms to describe the detrimental outcomes of abusive supervision on

subordinates. However, these theoretical mechanisms fail to explain why abusive leaders
are able to maintain subordinates’ perceived leader effectiveness.
To address these practical, empirical, and theoretical issues, we draw on the

perspectives of abusive supervision as political activity (Tepper, Duffy, and Breaux-
Soignet, 2012) and strategic leader bullying (Ferris, Zinko, Brouer, Buckley, and
Harvey, 2007) and propose an integrative model to theorize that leaders with certain
skills and characteristics are able to use abusive behaviors to manage their evaluations
and images. Specifically, we propose that leaders with superior political skills (i.e., the

ability to effectively understand others at work, and to use such knowledge to influence
others to act in ways that enhance one’s personal and/or organizational objectives) are
capable of exerting control on subordinates’ behaviors while maintaining their images

and impressions (Rice, Taylor, and Forrester, 2020) even when they engage in abusive
supervision behaviors. Therefore, we first propose that leaders’ political skills mitigate the
negative relationship between abusive supervision and leader effectiveness (Hypothesis 1).
Second, we theorize that leaders’ physical attractiveness is a valued characteristic in
social interactions that positively influence the judgments and treatment by the perceivers.

Specifically, the “beauty premium” perspective suggests that physically attractive
individuals are viewed as intelligent, competent, trustworthy, sociable, and confident,
leading to positive evaluations and greater sponsorship within the organizations (Tu,

Gilbert, and Bono, 2022). Moreover, even when attractive students engage in bullying

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