The do’s and don’ts of supervisor behavior. Supervisor personality as predictor for subordinate’s job insecurity and citizenship behaviors

Abstract

Supervisor behavior can be easily interpreted in a positive or negative key; therefore subordinates’ perceptions regarding their supervisor behavior can be biased by numerous personal variables. In the present study we collected data from 20 supervisors and 402 subordinates, and we investigated the relationships between these two perspectives. The supervisors completed two popular self-reported personality scales (i.e., a Big Five scale and a questionnaire that assessed psychopathic tendencies), while their subordinates responded to scales that assessed their level of job insecurity and their self-reported organizational citizenship behaviors. Our multilevel analyses indicated significant relationships between subordinates’ variables (i.e., job insecurity, organizational citizenship behaviors) and their managers’ agreeableness or their managers’ primary psychopathy. In addition, multilevel structural equation models confirmed that subordinates’ job insecurity partially mediated the relationship between supervisors’ primary psychopathy and subordinates’ citizenship behaviors. These findings confirmed the theoretical assumptions of the social learning theory, which anticipated the relationships between supervisors’ behaviors and employees’ behaviors.