A felt trust deficit conveys the negative regard others have for us. For leaders, feeling not trusted by their followers signals that they are negatively evaluated by those they lead. In this research, we examine the implications of a leader’s felt trust deficit from a follower for the leader’s emotional and behavioral responses. We propose that when a leader perceives a felt trust deficit from a follower, they can view it as a threat to the self-view as a leader (in the leader role) and experience follower-induced shame. This emotional response can in turn lead to the leader’s abusive supervision toward the follower. Moreover, the indirect relationship between a felt trust deficit and abusive supervision via follower-induced shame is stronger when a leader perceives heightened status threat from colleagues. Findings of three studies – a multi-source field survey, an experiment, and a multi-wave field survey – support the conceptual model. Our research delineates the negative ramifications when a leader experiences a felt trust deficit from a follower and shifts research focus from a follower-centric perspective to a leader-centric perspective.
