Incivility In The Workplace Essay

Ethical leadership and workplace incivility. The conduct of moral leaders has a positive effect on the decision making and conduct of employees (Walumbwa, Mayer, Wang, Wang, Workman, & Christensen, 2011). Thus, employees who are guided and mentored by ethical leaders are less likely to display unethical behaviour in the workplace (Mawritz, Mayer, Hoobler, Wayne, & Marinova, 2012). One such as deviant behaviour is workplace incivility (Matthew & Jo Ritter, 2016). Moreover, research shows that workplace incivility or rude and discourteous conduct has become prevalent in the workplace, costs organizations millions of dollars yearly, and affects 98% of employees (Porath & Pearson, 2013).
A study concerning incivility in the workplace conducted

The first category is cognitive which entails moral justification, where individuals persuade themselves that their harmful conduct is useful, such as the justification of killing in times of war to protect democracy (Moore, 2008). Also, euphemistic language falls under the cognitive category which involves sanitizing behaviour to minimize personal responsibility such as, blaming an outside force for unethical conduct (Bandura, 1986; Moore, 2008). Advantageous comparison makes unethical conduct appear tolerable through comparison such as, athletes comparing cheating with a more serious abuse such as fighting with an opponent (Bandura, 1986; Moore, 2008). The second category of moral disengagement involves decreased individual responsibility such as displacement of responsibility or shifting blame (Moore, 2008). Thus, diffusing responsibility involves spreading blame and disregarding consequences such as, ignoring the effect of injurious activities (Bandura, 1986; Moore, 2008). The third category involves devaluing victims (Moore, 2008). Here individuals are dehumanized or treated with cruelty (Haslan & Lughman, 2012, and blame is attributed to others or rather the victim is accused or provoked (Bandura, 1986; Moore,