Family Paths Towards Abusive or Benevolent Supervision: Parental Influence to Leader Behaviors via Goal Orientations

It is widely recognized that leaders differ in their styles. For example, some leaders treat their subordinates benevolently, whereas others show a cold or abusive style. However, the origins of these two ethically contrasting leadership styles are still not fully understood. Building on the attachment theory and goal orientation theory, our research establishes an integrative theoretical framework that links leaders' early life experience of parenting styles with leaders' abusive and benevolent behaviors via the mediating role of goal orientation. Across two multi-source studies conducted among leaders and their subordinates, we found that leaders raised by authoritarian parents were likely to exhibit abusive supervision. This link was mediated by leaders' performance-prove goal orientation. In contrast, leaders raised by authoritative parents were likely to exhibit benevolent behaviors. Leaders' learning goal orientation mediated this link. Our dual-path model advances the ethical discourse within leadership research by providing a unified developmental account for these two ethically opposite behaviors.