Toxic leadership
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the quest for great leadership, which provided a historical overview of how research on leadership has developed over time and discussed why the quest for “great” leadership can be problematic. Interestingly enough, some of the research on leadership appeared to paint the picture that it is perhaps not so important to be a “great” leader at all; oftentimes, it suffices just to not be a bad one - something that may be easier said than done.
While writing the post, I started thinking about the polar opposite side of good leadership - the destructive kind. At the time, I decided not to go further into it for the sake of brevity (and trying to avoid too many depressing points at once). Since, it’s sporadically been on my mind, and as I recently read about new research findings on destructive leadership from a group in Umeå, Sweden, the thought was rekindled. But what is destructive leadership, and why does it happen?
What is destructive leadership?
As with many concepts in the work and organizational sciences, there have been multiple ways of defining and describing negative behaviors that stem from an immediate supervisor. One of the dominant concepts that has emerged is that of abusive supervision. In 2000, the organizational psychologist Bennett Tepper published a paper exploring the consequences of abusive supervisor behavior, showing correlations between employees’ perceptions of having an abusive supervisor and their intentions to quit, lower job and life satisfaction, as well as a greater degree of psychological distress. Tepper defined abusive supervision as sustained hostile verbal or nonverbal treatment, perceived by subordinates. Some typical examples are: being ridiculed by your supervisor, your supervisor being dismissive of your feelings or opinions, being the target of angry outbursts, or being blamed or put down by your supervisor in front of others. Over the past two decades, an extensive amount of research has been carried out exploring the predictors and outcomes of abusive supervision, consistently showing it to be harmful to individuals, groups, and organizations alike.
As evidenced by the examples above, abusive supervision quite clearly refers to overt and seemingly deliberate negative behaviors displayed by a supervisor. However, in more recent years, research has come to broaden the definition of leader behaviors that are destructive to also include passive or unintentional destructive forms. This could instead refer to an inability to make decisions, being unstructured or messy, or simply not being present. Hence, destructive leadership behaviors may be significantly more frequent than previously anticipated, and although they may seem more inconsequential than direct abuse, the cost of passive leadership behaviors could, over time, become substantial.
How does it affect us and why does it occur?
If you’ve ever experienced a negative relationship with your immediate supervisor, it will come as no shock to you that destructive leadership is associated with a wide range of negative outcomes. When evidence from empirical studies has been synthesized and analyzed collectively, the picture is very clear. Abusive supervision appears to have a negative impact on employees’ well-being, attitudes, task performance, and behavior. Perhaps more strikingly, it also seems to increase the risk of destructive employee behaviors, indicating the emergence of a negative spiral. This could mean that employees, as a result of experiencing abusive supervision, may resort to destructive behavior towards the organization, withdraw from work, or simply resign.
If you’re in a management position, there is, of course, good reason to minimize these negative outcomes. So why do destructive leadership behaviors occur in the first place? Surely, few people come to work with the intention of wreaking havoc upon their fellow coworkers. Although there are indications that certain personality traits can influence leader behavior (e.g., narcissism, low agreeableness), there are also risk factors in the work environment that increase the risk for destructive leadership behaviors. These include stress, unclear roles in the organization, and supervisors having a high workload. Simply put, being under pressure can make people lash out, struggle to make decisions, or lose track of things, and when this occurs in a leadership role, it could be particularly damaging to others. Consequently, if you’re looking for modifiable factors (trying to modify someone’s personality will likely not do much good) to help reduce the impact of destructive leadership, a good place to start is by having a look at the general work environment. We all need good conditions in order to carry out our work, and managerial roles are no exception.
In fact, the supervisors’ work environment might be a bigger problem than anticipated. For example, one study on abusive supervision explored a type of “trickle-down” effect of abusive supervision, finding a connection between supervisors’ own experiences of abusive supervision from their managers and their subordinates’ ratings of abusive supervision from them. This, in turn, was related to more interpersonal negative behavior in the work group, showing a trajectory of adverse behaviors from the top downward in the organizational hierarchy.
Taken together, it is important to consider the psychosocial work environments on all organizational levels in order to create conditions that are favorable for a productive and healthy workplace. Sometimes, it may also be the passive and covert, rather than direct and overt, behaviors that are important to be mindful of be it from top management, supervisors, or any other employee in the organizational hierarchy. Granted, this will not get you all the way - there will always be people who do not function well in leadership roles and, intentionally or unintentionally, end up displaying destructive behaviors. Nevertheless, by establishing a good structure, clear routines, and a supportive culture from the top down, some of the risks can at least be mitigated.
Good leadership is important for us to thrive at work, but destructive leadership can really ruin a workplace. It may well be that “bad is stronger than good”, and that this applies to leadership practices just as much as all other walks of life. So let’s make sure there’s a lot more of the good, and then, perhaps, the bad won’t have as much impact.
Recommended further reading for the interested:
A guide (in Swedish) on how organizations can prevent destructive leadership, by researchers at CoLeadR, Umeå University.
A systematic review, and conceptual discussion of limitations and suggested developments, concerning research on abusive supervision, by Fischer et al (2021).