Toxic Leadership Essay

What good outcome has come from a leader who has no control of his emotions and screams at his employees to do what he wants? A leader with emotional intelligence will use a more effective approach. Let’s take for example a business personal with high EI Jeff Bezos CEO of Amazon is number one on Fortune's World's Greatest Leaders list. Amazon is a very successful and lucrative business. It is said that Jeff is obsessed with the hearts and minds of his customers and he has a long-term perspective on business strategy and relationships with customers and among employees (Envision Global Leader,

Being a good leader requires traits that are seldom found in the leaders we know today. While some leaders can trust their conscience to guide them to make decisions with basic morals in mind; having control of a large group of people and the ability to regulate and determine their every move can turn a good leader into an unrecognizable tyrant. Once a leader has begun to feel the power their tyrannous acts give them, it is rare that they can realize their mistakes and become an effective leader once again. Manipulation, greed, and paranoia all lead to a mentally unstable and tyrannous leader.

Emotional stability is very important in a leader. The head of an organization should be stable enough to handle every situation that he encounters. If a superior is too emotional, it may take away from his power and control. A good leader is one who is level-headed and assured in

One way of looking at this is that at the heart of leadership lies narcissism (REF) – which Freud (1914/57) summarised as behaviours that range from normal self-interest to a pathological self-absorption. Narcissism offers leaders the conviction about the righteousness of their cause, which in turn inspires loyalty and group identification. Narcissism can either be constructive or reactive (REF): constructive or healthy narcissists tend to make well balanced, introspective and empathetic leaders; on the other hand reactive or excessive narcissists are fixated on issues of power, prestige, status and superiority.

In my personal experience with different Management Styles as a professional firefighter, this particular subject does shed some light on the “why” leaders act and “how” others react. Emotional Intelligence is a theory championed by Dr. Daniel Goleman in the early 90’s (Emotional Intelligence, 1995) which, in short is the ability to: Recognize, understand and manage our own emotions; and Recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others. In the professional world this has been used to promote the idea that a well-rounded leader should not only possess the education and intelligence commensurate with a leadership position but also the Emotional Intelligence that appears to garner the support of peers, superiors and subordinates

Firstly, a good leader should be able to manage their emotions, meaning that if they have to act on their emotions, they should be able to also think of the

Toxic leadership can have high human and financial costs because of disengaged employees, which is the primary symptoms of dysfunctional

Dysfunctional leadership is an interesting topic to discuss due to the various styles of dysfunctional behavior witnessed in the workplace. Interestingly, some leaders exemplify their dysfunction with hostility, outbursts, and tantrums. Unfortunately, all of these behaviors can be offensive and disheartening to some employees, as they try to understand the behavior. As a result, followers suffer from sadness and depression in their careers. Sadly, some employees decide to suffer in silence and deal with the toxic work environment. In my opinion, dysfunctional behaviors should be addressed, in an effort to end the negative interactions and give support to the leader and followers.

After studying both the "four branch model" and Goleman's writings, one of the characteristics of emotional intelligence as I understand it is the ability to manage feelings and handle stress. Instead of those feelings and stress becoming a hindrance, the emotionally intelligent individual knows how to use them. The emotionally intelligent leader makes these traits work for them, not only to better relate to staff members, but to guide them and motivate them in order to better do their job and to obtain the goals of the organization. As an example, in the book Primal Leadership Daniel Goleman relates a story of a company that was personally affected by the tragedy of 9/11 (Goleman, et al., 2002). This financial company had family members, friends and coworkers taken away by this event. Instead of internalizing what he was feeling the leader called a meeting with his staff to discuss what they were all going through. They discussed how they wanted to do something about the tragedy to help contribute. So it was decided that they would donate the profits of one days' trading to a fund for the victims of 9/11. On average one day's trading was between five-hundred thousand and one million dollars. The people from this company were so inspired by their leader

Similar to groupthink, aversive leadership behaviors also emerge in response to interpersonal and organizational stress. Pearce and Sims (Thoroughgood et al., 2010) define aversive leadership as “. . . a brand of management relying on coercive power through specific use of intimidation tactics and reprimands” (p. 648). Such tyrannical and abusive behaviors destroy leader-member trust, which results in diminished performance, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors of followers (Bligh, Kohles, Pearce, Justin, & Stovall, 2007). Aversive leadership often arises from the mutual reinforcement of biased perceptions of both follower and leader intent (Harvey et al., 2006; Hogan & Hogan, 2001) – a process somewhat analogous to the realization of negative self-fulfilling prophecies (Vecchio, 2007).

When it comes to the topic of leadership, most of us are curious about our leaders as well as critical of them and their actions. Leaders set the tone, vision, and goals of any organization. Hence, a leader’s behavior and leadership style are constantly scrutinized. Northouse (2009) has suggested that leadership has a huge impact on the culture of an organization and how people communicate within the organization. Therefore, the action of leaders should inspire also positively impact followers. After all, a leader’s approach and handling of adversities highlights many features of his/her character.

Psychodynamic leadership focuses on the dynamics of human behavior most difficult to understand, it acknowledges are complex and unique beings and at times illogical. After accepting and discovering the hidden emotions that influence human behavior can a leader begin to understand organizational life and it complexities (Kets de Vries & Cheak, 2014, p. 3-4).

Nowadays leaders are portrayed as high energy and confident. They are thought of as perfect, they don’t need others opinions or help. They believe they can handle everything on their own. People tend to respond positively to these types of leaders because they’re confidence rubs off. When they spend time with such a personality, the leaders actions begin to rub off on them.

In the article written by Ray Williams (2016) he explains why toxic leadership is on the rise and how that is creating

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.