I Feel Your Pain: Trait Empathy And Leader Reactions to Providing Subordinates Negative Feedback

Despite clear performance improvement benefits, managers are often reluctant to provide negative feedback to subordinates. Although prior research has identified negative feedback as an aversive managerial activity, little is known about why some managers avoid it. Drawing on self-regulation and emotional contagion theories, we theorize that negative feedback provision has negative psychological and behavioral outcomes for managers, especially...