Toxic Leadership
How Dark Side Leadership Personality Destroys Trust and Degrades Organizational Effectiveness
Introduction
People seem implicitly to attach the word 'good' to the word 'leadership'. This tendency may explain why academic researchers have avoided managerial (and leadership) incompetence. The recent implosion of several organizations (i.e. Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Hollinger International) and the associated media coverage has called attention to the existence of bad leaders. This article draws on the knowledge base concerning the dark side of personality to define the critical issues associated with managerial derailment and to offer guidance to leadership development practitioners. The paper is organized sin three sections. First, we offer a definition of leadership that differs from the standard view. Second, we define personality dimensions that characterize both effective and ineffective leadership, and show how these dimensions translate into leadership behavior. Finally, we offer some suggestions for leadership development practitioners.
Defining Good and Bad Leadership
Researchers and practitioners often complain that there is no agreed-upon definition of leadership – there are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are people who study it. We find it helpful to focus on the functions of leadership than the characteristics of people who are in charge. Consistent with this orientation, we value the roach and Behling (1984) definition in terms of the process of influencing a group toward accomplishing its goals. This definition highlights three critical issues: (1) leadership is a process; (2) it implies influence (implicitly a bidirectional influence process); (3) it entails accomplishing a specified goal. Hogan and colleagues extend this definition by arguing that leadership should be understood in terms of both the 'ends' – accomplishing the goals of an organization – and the 'means' of leadership – building and maintaining high
Introduction
People seem implicitly to attach the word 'good' to the word 'leadership'. This tendency may explain why academic researchers have avoided managerial (and leadership) incompetence. The recent implosion of several organizations (i.e. Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Hollinger International) and the associated media coverage has called attention to the existence of bad leaders. This article draws on the knowledge base concerning the dark side of personality to define the critical issues associated with managerial derailment and to offer guidance to leadership development practitioners. The paper is organized sin three sections. First, we offer a definition of leadership that differs from the standard view. Second, we define personality dimensions that characterize both effective and ineffective leadership, and show how these dimensions translate into leadership behavior. Finally, we offer some suggestions for leadership development practitioners.
Defining Good and Bad Leadership
Researchers and practitioners often complain that there is no agreed-upon definition of leadership – there are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are people who study it. We find it helpful to focus on the functions of leadership than the characteristics of people who are in charge. Consistent with this orientation, we value the roach and Behling (1984) definition in terms of the process of influencing a group toward accomplishing its goals. This definition highlights three critical issues: (1) leadership is a process; (2) it implies influence (implicitly a bidirectional influence process); (3) it entails accomplishing a specified goal. Hogan and colleagues extend this definition by arguing that leadership should be understood in terms of both the 'ends' – accomplishing the goals of an organization – and the 'means' of leadership – building and maintaining high