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The Four Signs of a Toxic Leader
by
Wesley D. Balda
and
Janis Bragan Balda
“Why do we tolerate and follow toxic leaders?”
For most of us that question is too painful to confront. Our fear of losing income, reputation or self-esteem edges us into compromises that damage our hearts and souls. We are willing to bear these burdens and accept these scars because the alternatives frighten us too much. How can I sacrifice my family’s wellbeing or feed my children if I’m constantly marching away from positions that upset my fragile moral frame of reference? Life is hard, so I just need to put up with my bullying boss ... right? And it is true: many leaders suffer from some degree of toxicity. If any part of our religious position recognizes fallenness—original sin or evil in the world—then we understand that leadership, grounded by power, has potentially toxic roots. This is not such a bad theory because it gives us a clear starting point for identifying and surviving toxic leadership, both as leader and as led. Toxicity manifests in numerous and pungent ways—bullying, toxic ambivalence, pretension, fantasy and hypocrisy.
Bullying and Commanding
Bullying involves things like unfair treatment, public humiliation and other forms of threatening behavior. While some bullying is straightforward, other behaviors can be subtler yet still create toxicity. These include undermining one’s position or responsibility, falsely taking credit, spreading rumors and halftruths, and social ostracism.
Some research identifies bullying as an epidemic, especially in the workplace. For example, in the United States over a third of the workforce may have been bullied. The practice can be a form of same-gender/same-race harassment not covered by numerous laws and judgments of recent years. Nearly three-fourths of bullies are bosses. This, of course, makes it a leadership issue.
Whenever a leader commands, the power dynamic shifts and can become problematic. There is a thin line between commanding and bullying. Bullying can involve shouting, swearing, name-calling, malicious sarcasm, threats to safety, or actions that are threatening, intimidating, humiliating, hostile, offensive or cruel. To cement their position, bullies evaluate performance unfairly, deny advancement, steal credit, attack reputations, give arbitrary instruction, and even assign unsafe work. They can interfere, sabotage, undermine, and encourage failure. The underlying phenomenon often identified as workplace bullying can result in physical as well as emotional and psychological disorders, including a diagnosis such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Toxic Ambivalence: Sins of Omission
We can probably agree that toxic leadership does not necessarily require intentionality—it can be accomplished quite effectively as a sin of omission rather than commission. Simple ineptness and rank incompetence breed toxicity in their own way. Followers experience frustration where managers do nothing.
Steven Sample, former president of the University of Southern California, describes “thinking gray” as an attribute of a contrarian leader. It refers to avoiding, delaying or deferring a decision until it has to be made, which really is a decision in itself. In some highly charged political situations the leader may walk a thin line between pragmatic indecision and toxic ambivalence. While this may preserve college presidencies or other newly installed senior leaders, it can also be a quick route to toxic ambivalence.
Pretension: The Problem of Celebrity
“As soon as enough people give you enough compliments and you’re wielding more power than you’ve ever had in your life, it’s not that you become arrogant or rude to people, but you get a false sense of your own importance and what you’ve accomplished. You actually think you’ve altered the course of history.”
The fact that this quote came from a movie star, Leonardo DiCaprio, rather than an executive only amplifies its relevance. Characterizing the leader as celebrity may sound like an odd take, but we can see how aptly it fits. Through a variety of circumstances any public event (physical, virtual or broadcasted), we create celebrity. It is a form of leadership that emerges from visibility and branding. A name becomes increasingly recognizable, and a set of meanings is attached to it. There can then be a subtle shift, as a normal human being becomes a brand.
Uncritical followers, attracted by the brand, ignore a host of warning signs. A foundational indicator of toxic celebrity is a lack of accountability. Leaders enthralled with celebrity are literally “in thrall” to the unholy freedom to do exactly whatever feels good at the moment. This is the dark side of celebrity. At the same time, celebrities are placed under extraordinary pressure without the benefit of being held responsible for results. Those followers who are eventually disappointed or hurt are also usually the ones who bring down celebrities once they discover their feet of clay.
The phenomenon is not limited to Hollywood stars. Some leaders consciously leverage a personal brand to be more effective, giving little thought to the moral or ethical implications of their burgeoning celebrity. These leaders represent a fair and balanced cross section of politicians, corporate executives and preachers. To varying degrees we all want to be celebrities because it means others are impressed by what we say, do things for us, affirm us, become our “friends,” don’t criticize or hurt us, and primarily allow us to exercise power over them—only because we are important, not because we are right. That is the bad news. Because celebrity is a form of leadership, it can become toxic. But in and of itself, celebrity is not bad. We start with a neutral concept and by understanding it attempt to deal with its realities. If leaders are defined as those with followers, then anyone with one or more followers will deal with some aspect of celebrity as we are defining it.
Celebrity in this generic sense is going to happen to leaders with visibility, whether desired or not, so how do we keep it from getting toxic? Toxic celebrities are generally humorless about their own shortcomings, travel with uncritical followers, seek more celebrity and constantly build their own brands. Their celebrity can turn into notoriety when toxicity becomes public. However, these celebrity leaders may also remain effective (as they define it) or even become more effective in inappropriate ways.
The bottom line is that celebrity without community is toxic. Community, in some sense, provides accountability and prevents toxicity, if understood properly. But what kind of community? A group of mere followers, an acquiescent community, does not exercise accountability. The only community of any worth is a community of loving detractors.
Hypocrisy: the Problem of the Servant Leader
Jesus’ counterintuitive teaching on servant leadership reputedly launched this often-praised ideal of leadership (or at least gets cited often). But what are all the implications of becoming a servant? How often is slave associated with servant leadership? How would a leader exhibit slave-like behaviors when leading? Jesus gave his life “as a ransom for many”; are we willing to link our eventual physical death—becoming a literal ransom for our followers—to current discussions of servant leadership? Biblically, this is a fairly narrow concept, which has become embellished with extrabiblical meanings.
Certainly a servant-leader is sharply different from one who is a leader first, perhaps because of a need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant, first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. Robert Greenleaf has done much thinking on this and in his book,
Servant Leadership,
writes, "The test I like best, though difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged person in society; will she or he benefit, or at least, not be further deprived? No one will knowingly be hurt, directly or indirectly."
However, sometimes followers have a higher expectation for clear (or even forceful) direction than a leader does, which can confuse the leader in his or her attempts to be a servant. It can also cause a breakdown of communication and an abdication of responsibility for results where a leader attempts to be collaborative at all costs. Lack of direction, of managing, of exercising leadership, can just as quickly create chaos among these types of followers and allow silos to fester.
Perhaps we need to step back and realize that in one sense everyone in an organization serves. Support functions serve the mission as well as serving the operations functions; operational people serve the mission and the customer, and so on. Ultimately, though, the manager serves the institution, and not its employees, customers or shareholders. The manager's first task is to make the institution, whether business, hospital, school, or university, perform the function and make the contribution for the sake of which it exists. Servanthood must contribute to the institution’s performance. If the institution or organization does not perform, it has no reason to exist (and servant leadership becomes irrelevant). Of course, the manager can generate performance through good leadership, ethical behaviors and affirming relationships with followers and subordinates; but the priorities must never be confused. In the final analysis, for those who refuse to part with the term servant leaders (and especially if you think you are one), have someone check with your followers anonymously. The only true test for a so-called servant leader is a confidential reality check with the followers.
A Final Thought: Am I a Toxic Leader?
It is easier to recall occasions when we have been bullied than it is to remember when we have done the bullying. In the midst of enthusiastically cataloguing the various injustices that another leader may have perpetrated on us, we might need to work through our own “due diligence” and explore our personal capacity as leaders for battering followers.
Once aware of our problem, most of us will hopefully seek a solution, recognizing that self-regulation is part of our job as a leader. However many leaders still refuse to confront the signs of toxicity and instead assault their followers until they are stopped or retire. Without this honest appraisal we have no right to complain about those who batter us.
Adapted from
Handbook for Battered Leaders
by Janis Bragan Balda and Wesley D. Balda. Copyright(c) 2013 by Janis Bragan Balda and Wesley D. Balda. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com
Editor's Note: Image by
Victor 1558
.
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