The Dark Side of Leadership

Foundations

Some leaders’ behaviors even become pathological once positions of power have been attained. Other leaders succumb to self-importance and indulgence (pp. 395)

Narcissism: preoccupation with their status in the eyes of others; egocentric, prone to illusions of superiority and specialness, and liable to be interpersonally abrasive or aggressive (pp. 396)

Individuals whose personalities are characterized by a high degree of narcissism are driven by intense needs for power, dominance, and prestige, leading them to seek out and attain leadership positions (pp. 396)

Machiavellianism: a person’s general strategy for dealing with people; individuals who have a strong Machiavellian orientation feel that people are manipulable in interpersonal situations; as leaders, these individuals tend to employ manipulation techniques as an influence tactic (pp. 396)

• High Mach personalities may be possessed by sycophants, who deprive leaders of critical feedback for the purpose of self-enhancement (pp. 403)

Learned helplessness: condition in which individuals become dependent on others to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity and are nearly incapable of problem solving on their own (pp. 397)

Group maladies (pp. 397)

1. groupthink: the condition in which a group has illusions of invulnerability and engages in single-minded thinking
2. risky shift (polarization): the presumed tendency for a group o take a more extreme position than its members would have taken if acting alone
3. social loafing: group members fail to put forth their best efforts in the belief that their contributions will essentially get lost in the group effort
4. diffusion of responsibility: a group dynamic or process through which individual fail to act in the belief or expectation that it is the job of others to act, or because the presence of others reduces feelings of accountability

Two overriding themes of leadership (pp. 400):

• Leadership necessarily involves moral purpose
• Followes play a passive role

Effects of failure (pp. 400):

• bad necision making
• frustration
• dysfunctional organizations
• unintended consequences
• wasted resources
• ruined careers
• organizational decline or dissolution

Mirroring (pp. 401): the tendency to see oneself as they are perceived by their followers and to feel they must act to satisfy the projections or fantasies of followers…The impact is the most serious when leaders use their authority and power to initiate actions that have serious, negative consequences for the organization

Narcissism (pp. 401): a distored view of self…can become intolerant of criticism, unwilling to compromise, and frequently surround themselves with sycophants

Emotional Illiteracy (pp. 401): Inability to differentiate and verbalize emotion (alexithymia)…While they are controlled, structured and dispassionate, they lack the emotional abilities to empathize, energize, foster creativity and respond appropriately to conflict

Unwillingness to let go (pp. 401): knowing they no loner fit the demands of the job, nevertheless cannot let go

• Talion Principle: the fear of reprisals
• Ediface Complex: the fear of nothingness

Two ways that followers can affect leader dynamics (pp. 402):

• Throught the personal traits that followers carry into the influence process
• The synergy that emerges through leaders and follower interaction

Exemplary Followers Five-Styles…leaders seek to develop exemplary followers (Kelly, pp. 402):

1. Exemplary: active and independent, critical thinking
2. Conformist: active and dependent, uncritical thinking
3. Passive: passive and dependent, uncritical thinking
4. Alienated: passive and independent, critical thinking
5. Pragmatist: medium on both dimensions

Follower syndromes (pp. 402):

• controlling disposition: person ends up in a position of leadership, but they are alo frequently followers (Organization Man)
• Histrionic: desperate need to attract attention at all costs
• Passive aggressive: appear acquiescent, making it difficult for a superior to confront them
• Dependent disposition: form extremely intense, over-powering connections with the individual who satisfies those needs
• Masochistic: encourage others to take advantage of them, accept blame for things for which they are not responsible and find positive reinforcement in their misfortune

Folie a deux: the sharing of a delusional system by at least two individuals (pp. 403)

The very behaviors that distinguish leadrs from managers also have the potential to produce problematic or even disastrous outcomes for their organizations (pp. 405)

• Three skills that contribute to problems: strategic vision, communications and impression-management skills, and general management practices

Problems with the visionary leader (pp. 405):

• Unsuccessful strategic visions can often be traced to the inclusion of the leaders’ personal aims that did not match their contituents’ needs
• The blind drive to crete a very personal vision could result in an inability to see prblems and opportunities in the environment
• Personal visions encourage the leadre to expend enormous amounts of ebergy, passion, and resources on geting them off the ground
• Common errors
  • Inability to detect important changes in markets
  • Failure to accurately assess and obtain the necessary resources for the vision’s accomplishment
  • A misreading or exaggerated sense of the needs of markets or constituents
• Phrrhic Victory (pp. 406): the leader is so driven that they ignore the costly implications of their strategic aims.
• Chasing a vision before its time: marketplace fails to sustain the leader’s venture
• Cognitive dissonance: individuals act to keep the commitments they have made because failing to do so would damage their facorable perceptions of themselves

Potential liabilities in the leader’s communictions and impression management skills (pp. 407):

• Exaggerated self-descriptions
• Exaggerated claims for the vision
• A technique of fulfilling stereotypes and images of uniqueness to manipulate audiences
• A habit of gaining commitment by restricting negative information and maximizing positive information
• Use of anecdotes to distract attention away from negaitve statistical information
• Creation of an illusion of control through affirming information and attributing negative outcomes to external causes

Leaders’ liabilities (pp. 408):

• The way they manage relations with important others
• their management style with direct reports
• their thoroughness and attention to certain administrative detail

Scholars

Kets de Vries; Miller; Clements; Washbush; Conger

Research

Clements, C. & Washbush, J. B. (1999). The two faces of leadership: Considering the dark side of leader-follower dynamics. Journal of Workplace Learning. 11(5), 170-175.

Conger, J. A. (1990). The dark side of leadership. Organizational Dynamics. 19(2), 44-55.

Notes

Related Theories

Charismatic Leadership