Understanding Workplace Aggression

What is Workplace Aggression?

"Behavior by an individual or individuals within or outside of an organisation that is designed to physically damage or psychologically harm a worker or workers and occurs in a work-related context" is referred to as "workplace aggression" (Schat & Kelloway, 2005). It is an umbrella phrase that covers a wide range of interpersonal workplace unpleasant behaviours that may be observed or practised, including victimisation, bullying, mobbing, incivility, exclusion/ostracism, discrimination, harassment, and psychological aggressiveness.?

Aggression in the Workplace and Leadership?

In contrast, the term "values-based and moral leadership," which is often referred to as "ethical-oriented leadership," "moral leadership," or "ethical/moral values-based leadership," was recently developed by leadership researchers.?

Wenrui Cao and colleagues outline how workplace aggressiveness can be reduced in their article "Leadership and workplace aggression: A meta-analysis," which was published in the?Journal of Business Ethics. ?"Workplace aggressiveness is a pervasive, troublesome issue. According to estimates, the prevalence of workplace aggressiveness ranges from 3.5 to 10% in Europe, 15% in Japan, and 30% in the USA. Aggression in the workplace is bad for people's mental health and productivity, which eventually has an impact on businesses through higher turnover and absenteeism," the authors argue.

Given the ubiquity of workplace aggressiveness and its negative effects on both individuals and businesses, the authors believe it's critical to comprehend its causes and effective prevention measures.?

According to experts, leadership may have an even more significant role in determining workplace violence. For instance, it has been demonstrated that abusive supervision still has larger meta-analytic associations with actual incivility than job traits do, and that leader aggressiveness still has a stronger correlate with employee interpersonal deviance than co-worker and outsider hostility do.?

The authors contend that aggression in the workplace can be stopped or at least reduced through organizational leadership. For instance, ethical leadership has been demonstrated to be successful in lowering aggressive behaviour at work. In contrast, leaders themselves sometimes commit crimes. Employees who are subjected to destructive leadership may retaliate against them, model their destructive behavior, or direct their aggression elsewhere, which may result in an increase in workplace aggression.?

This study teaches us a number of useful things. Overall, the authors argue their analysis demonstrates that leadership and workplace violence are strongly related. “Since ethical leadership is the most effective positive type, according to our research, businesses would profit if they invested in transforming their current leaders into ethical ones. That is, teaching leaders how to prioritise moral principles, raise knowledge about how to prevent violence, promote morally upright conduct at work, and look into and penalise aggressiveness when it does occur. “

Leaders should also be aware that how they interact with staff members may affect the occurrence or even escalation of aggressive behaviours, they say. To avoid ignoring (or even indulging in) violent behaviour, leaders should actively control their own behaviour. Organizations should therefore educate their leaders about the connection between leadership and workplace violence, for instance through leadership development programmes.?

Conclusion

Aggression in the workplace is becoming a common and growing problem that hurts both companies and people. The amount of research on methods for dealing with workplace hostility is growing. The current meta-analysis verified that leadership plays a significant part in workplace hostility. The authors??discovered negative connections between workplace aggressiveness and change-oriented, relational, values-based, and moral leadership, as well as positive associations between workplace aggression and laissez-faire, destructive leadership. Comparing different leadership styles, ethical leadership had the strongest correlation with lessened workplace hostility.

In my book,?Toxic Bosses: Practical Wisdom for Developing Wise, Ethical and Moral Leaders, and in my forthcoming book,?Virtuous Leaders: How Good Character Is the Foundation for Great Leadership,?I describe how leadership development should and can focus more on ethical and moral leadership, which in turn, can reduce workplace aggression.