An Exploratory Study on Increasing Social Undermining in Organisations: A Socio-Psychological Leadership Perspective

Social undermining happens when negative emotions are expressed against any person/employee or negatively framing issues around a person/employee from achieving their goals in an organisation. The undermining can happen from leaders to subordinates and vice versa. Traits like dislike or anger without any reason, negative evaluations of an employee, by criticizing their actions, efforts or characteristics. Social undermining happens even in relationships between family members, friends, personal relationships and co-workers. Social undermining affects a person's mental health, with possibilities of depressive symptoms. Social undermining happens at organisation in the way of hindering co-worker's ability to establish, or maintain a positive interpersonal relationship, success reputation. Delaying the work of co-workers, to make it bad, slow them down, creating competing traits against co-workers to gain status and recognition, giving co-workers incorrect or even misleading information about a particular job, can be included in social undermining. The leaders need to find solutions on how to curtail, is what this article is to explore.