Follower Thriving and Job Performance Despite Leader Incivility? Dual Effects of Coworkers’ Support

This study examines the mechanisms through which uncivil leader behavior can still lead to followers thriving and performing well in their jobs. We combine tenets of the conservation of resources, job demands-resources, broaden-and-build, and threat to self-esteem theories to develop the hypotheses. Leader incivility behaviors were expected to reduce follower positive affect and, in turn, to thwart thriving and job performance. To counteract those negative leader effects we derived two other, paradoxical hypotheses about the role of coworkers’ support: such support was expected to both intensify and reduce the negative follower effects of leader incivility. On invoking a survey design, we collected data from Indonesian employees (n = 226), in three waves (separated by three weeks), and tested the mediated moderation hypotheses with structural equation modeling. The relationship between leader incivility behaviors and job performance was indeed mediated by employee positive affect and thriving in a series. Moreover, we established the intensifying effect of coworkers’ support to leader incivility behaviors, and coworkers’ support also compensated for the negative leader effect by providing solace to the victimized peer. In the future, similar models need to be examined in actual work settings where coworker relations are outright competitive or otherwise dissimilar.