Essay on Leadership Reflections: Aspects of Dysfunctional Leadership

Groupthink can be defined as a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in irrational decision-making. In 1971, twenty-four psychologically stable men took part in a trial known as The Stanford Prison Experiment. The purpose of the experiment was to prove that an individual’s perception of their own power is heavily influenced by social context and societal expectations of their role. The men involved in the experiment were assigned either the role of a prisoner or a guard to represent positions in society, both with power and without. More specifically, the conductors of The Stanford Prison Experiment focused on analyzing the different behavioral

Leadership is critical and it refers to the process of influencing followers towards achieving the groups’ goals. Toxic leadership refers to the leadership offered by leaders who abuse power and leave the group they lead in a poorer condition after they are left. Toxic leadership is associated with incompetence, insularity, evil, intemperance (lack of self control), callousness, rigidity and corruption among other bad leadership characters. The leaders involved in toxic leadership are not concerned about uplifting the people they lead (followers). Instead, they make sure they satisfy their self interests. They fight and control instead of caring for their followers. In most cases, the leaders with this leadership style are leaders who bully, abuse, and discriminate the subordinates. In addition, they create a hostile climate, self serving and arrogant, threaten and even yell at their followers among other fierce characters. They do not lead based on their qualifications. However, they apply force to be in leadership positions thus making the lives of their followers a misery . They are selfish in that they work to promote themselves without regard to the welfare of their followers. In most cases, do this by not minding about the future of their group and its members. This paper explores the effects of toxic leadership in the United States.

Decision making is affected by the Group Think because of the lack of openness that should be displayed and offered by everyone involved. The development of the organization is dependent on the ability of the group to make decisions that are thought through and not made solely on pressures and accepted or narrow minded ways that are not thought out.

According to Irving Janes (1972), groupthink occurs when a group makes an irrational decision because of group pressure fostering and the deterioration of ‘mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgement” (Irving, Janis, Victims of groupthink, p.9). Social influence is the effect that people have upon the beliefs or behaviors of others (Aaronson, 2004). Both groupthink and social influence theory have a factor in what

Irving Janis, a social psychologist, studied how social behavior is influenced in group settings. In 1972, he coined the name ‘groupthink’ to describe observed behavioral changes in individuals belonging to groups. Groupthink is characterized by a group’s pursuit for unity, often resulting in individual members disregarding or altering their own beliefs to coincide with the majority, or group’s, beliefs. This disregard or altercation ensures that the group stays unified; however, results in the group committing illogical actions without considering

Groupthink: Groupthink is a way that groups may try to keep levels of conflict low. The problem is that all members pretend that they agree with a decision, which discourages creativity. Without counter arguments being presented, the group is susceptible to bad or even irrational decisions (Beebe p. 191).

Meindl, J. R. (1990). On leadership: An alternative to the conventional wisdom. Research in Organizational Behavior, 12, 159-203.

The term groupthink in this report is defined as, the social psychological phenomenon that results in groups during pressure situations. This social psychology theory is broken down into eight signs. Illusion of invulnerability, Collective rationalization, Belief in inherent morality, Stereotyped views of out-groups, Direct pressure on dissenters, Self-censorship, Illusion of unanimity, Self-appointed “mindguards”. According to research conducted by Irving Janis, there are three conditions to groupthink. The first, "high group cohesiveness" which is the direction for a group to be in unity while working towards a goal, or to satisfy the emotional needs of its members. Secondly, the structural faults such as insulation of the group, lack

Groupthink theory often occurs without the group’s realization. Irving Janis formed 8 different symptoms that indicate groupthink. The first of these symptoms is illusions of vulnerability. This occurs when members of the group are overly optimistic and believe that nothing negative will arise from their decision. Janis describes it as taking great risks and acquiring the attitude of “everything is going to be OK, because we are a special group”. Secondly we have belief in inherent morality. This symptom is characterized as the groups thought that they could do no wrong. They believe that they have high morality, that they are right in all situations and they ignore the ethical consequences that could arise because of their decisions. As the third

Narcissism is the “tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose sense of self-importance, require excessive admiration and have a sense of entitlement (Robbins & Judge, 2009).” It is the type of personality that doesn’t fit well for a manager or someone in a leadership position. Supervisors, when educating and training their employees, need to possess a degree of humility during communication with them. The important component is people skills: employees must not only respect their supervisors, but they must also feel that they are respected by their bosses. If ever a manager becomes too enamored with himself, employees can sense this arrogance and become more apathetic to the idea of respecting the supervisor’s authority. In other

Organizational leadership is the foundation of synergy that creates an atmosphere of competitive advantage or turmoil of the organization. Selection, recruitment, and advancement of the individuals who possess the skills necessary in motivating employees toward organizational goals may be difficult (Wieck, Prydun, & Walsh, 2002). Therefore, identifying undesirable abusive and non-leadership traits and behaviors may assist leadership in the appropriate organizational leadership selection process. The purpose of this report is to analyze existing empirical data in adverse leadership behavior and identify the negative effects of executive leadership use.

Furthermore, groupthink and group polarization also occurred in the movie. Groupthink is the tendency for members to reach solidarity, and the group often avoids questions that could lead to disputes (Iurchevici, 2016). In order for groupthink to occur, the group must be highly cohesive, in a group structure, and in a stressful situation (Kassin et al., 2013). All three of these were present in the movie, as the members of the group

The three empirical articles primarily studies is about leadership and how personality traits of a leader can reflect and affect his or her role. The first article was conducted by Liliendfel, Waldman, Landfield, Watts, Rubenzer, and Faschingbauer in 2012 titled, “Fearless Dominance and the U.S. Presidency: Implications of Psychopathic Personality Traits for Successful and Unsuccessful Political Leadership” whose purpose is to evaluate and measure the personality of the 42 U.S. presidents. The second article titled as, “Impact of Personal Growth Projects on Leadership Identity Development,” by Odom, Boyd, and Williams (2012) whose objective was to examine students’ reflection of their personal growth project. Lastly, the third article is, “Leadership Styles and Associated Personality Traits: Support for the Conceptualisation of Transactional and Transformational Leadership” by van Eeden, Cilliers, and van Deventer (2008) whose motive was to examine a group of management teams using various measuring instruments. This synthesis paper is to discover the common themes addressed in each of the three articles, as well as, a conclusion that can be drawn, and provide an overall message of the group of articles.

This type of group mentality is referred to as “groupthink.” Group think, a concept discovered by Irving Janis, is the thought process that takes place among members of a cohesive group wherein they cease to consider their individual desires and instead respond according to group beliefs. This is done to ensure the solidity of the group. The members value this even more than their own views.

When an employee of an organization feels their performance and achievements do not matter, that organization may ultimately suffer. Genuinely recognizing the value of your employees will help stop a leader from falling into the pitfalls of leadership, and having their employees enter into a dimension known as the ‘critter state”. An employee that falls into this state is known to have their ideas and skills fall short while they focus on a single question: “What will keep me safe?” (Comaford C., 2013). Below, I will explore the leadership pitfalls and how to possibly avoid them.