Critical Examination Of The Dark And Dysfunctional Face Of Leadership In An Essay.

Modern Perceptions of Leadership and Critical Analysis

Critically Examine Research Exploring the Dark, Dysfunctional Face of Leadership.

Leadership can be referred as an influence of a person on others which helps in directing others in the same direction for achieving the common goals (Nanjundeswaraswamy & Swamy, 2014). In this globally competitive environment, it is very important for an organisation to adopt a suitable leadership style which not only stimulates the performance of the organisation but also motivates its people. It is seen that though leadership is taken as a good and positive thing in the modern world, it has its dark side too. In this essay, the critical analysis will be done on the dark and dysfunctional face of leadership.

Leadership plays an important role in fostering the team success. It’s how the teams get motivated to achieve a common goal. The business world is changing quickly and the companies are facing challenges in accomplishing their goals and objectives (Sadeghi & Pihie, 2012). The leadership is perceived as a good and positive thing which unites teams and the leaders are perceived as ones who always show the right path. But as per the views of Washbush & Clements (2014), Leadership can also show its dark side. On one hand, leadership provides motivation and commitment to the followers but on the other hand, the negative effects of leadership may bring frustration, delayed decision making and waste of resources in the organisation.

It is equally important to study about the adverse effects of leadership with the positive effects of leadership. As per Pelletier (2010), there are some key dimensions of the negative leadership which involves Abusive leadership, Tyrannical leadership, Destructive leadership, bullying, unethical leadership and toxic leadership. All these dimensions show that leadership may harm the enthusiasm or empowerment of the individuals at the workplace.  Abusive leadership is when injurious actions are taken on the followers. Fear is created among them so that they could complete the given work on time. Tyrannical leaders are those who are arrogant and are rigid for their methods and beliefs. They create distrust among the followers. Destructive leadership harms the organisation by the sabotaging the interest of followers and organisation as well. Bullying, on the other hand, is where the leader tortures and insults the follower mentally or physically. The incidents of bullying have increased recently in the countries like Europe, Australia, USA and more. As per the data provided by Pelletier (2010), 1 in every 5 employees in US isbullied repeatedly. Toxic leadership is the one where the leader is not capable of the duties he is entitled to.

Dark Traits and Bright Traits of a Leader: The Dark Side of Leadership

According to Harms, Spaina & Hannahb (2011), personality traits play a very important role in the development of a leader. There are some dark personality traits which contribute in showing dark face of leadership. There is a dark side of the dark traits of a leader. These dark traits include Narcissism, Hubris, Social dominance and Machiavellianism. Narcissism can be understood as high level of love for self.  It is like believing highly in self and taking others as inferior to themselves.  The leaders who are narcissistic can attract people but can also lead to lower performance in job. Looking onto its bright side, Narcissistic leaders are bold and draw attention of people. They can enhance the performance of the business by their bold steps. Hubris is another characteristic which means that an individual has pride and self-confidence in excess (Fioravante, 2013). This may reduce the market performance or can also hamper the decision-making of an individual.  The leaders characterised by Hubris are confident and are committed to fulfil their promises.  They are capable of taking up innovations in business. Social dominance is when people dominate on others. It may hamper the trust between the individuals. Its positive side can be shows authority which shows completeness in projects and targets. Machiavellianism is another trait which means manipulation, cunning behaviour and forcefully making others believe on self. These leaders have high flexibility and are capable of administrating the whole team (Judge, Piccolo & Kosalka, 2009).

In comparison to the above discussed dark side of dark traits, there is a dark side to some bright traits in a leader. These include Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Emotional stability, Openness to experience, Intelligence, Charisma and more (Leutner, et al., 2013). The people who are highly conscious are not willing to take bold steps and innovative steps. They normally resist change and can result in the slower growth of business. Extraversion shows how people connect with the outer world. The people who are highly extroverts are generally bold and are capable of connecting with the external world but they lack sometimes as they take hasty decisions and are extra aggressive on schedules which might hamper the quality of the projects. The leaders who are highly agreeable can lead to the ineffective decisions in the influence of all the team members. The leaders who have emotional stability in excess are generally those who are not able to set up connection with their followers (Takala, 2010).  They do not understand the emotions of their followers. The leaders scoring high in openness can lead to the conflicts between the group beliefs. Intelligence is the trait which shows leader effectiveness but high intelligence may create a mismatch between the group members and the leader. Charisma is when the leader inspires its followers. High score on charisma may be bad because it creates an illusion and may lack in getting the wise suggestions from the followers (Leutner, et al., 2013).

Consequences of Dark Side of Leadership and Measures to Manage

According to Karakitapog?lu-Aygu¨n&Gumusluoglu (2012), modern leadership is taken as positive, inspiring, supporting and as a role model for followers. Recent studies show that leadership has some negative side. There are some behaviour patterns and practices of dark leadership like corrupt practices. The bad leaders are incompetent, rigid, and corrupt and are evil who have intentions of physical harm to others. The leaders fail when they are not able to adopt the external environment. The ineffective leaders generally take the organisation to the lower level even from where it used to be (Watters, 2014). As per Linstead, Marechal & Griffin (2014), more research has been done on leadership and its dark side. Dark side leadership is a dominant approach. The research indicates that there are some functional dysfunctional consequences which depend on the personality and attitudes of the individuals. It is when an individual reaches a high position and misuses the power or strength. Not only the traits or functions of leaders cause the dysfunctional situation but the external environment might also affect. The consequences of dark side of leadership include the increasing amount of pressure on teams to perform and to achieve objectives of the team. This can create stressful situations among the team members which encourage the dark side of leaders even more. This even erodes the trust between the group members and the leader. Lot of studies has been done on the ‘dark side’ of leadership which shows that it brings poor work performance, poor behaviour and derailment (Watters, 2014).

The dark side can be managed if some steps are taken in advance. As per Watters (2014), the poor selection of leaders leads to the dark side and bring failures.  The past researches suggest that not the traits or features but the poor selection or choice of leaders causes dysfunctional situations in the organisations. The organisations while the selection of the leaders, should look for the warning signs before hiring the candidates. Reliable measures can be taken to reduce the number of selection of the undesirable candidates. It can be done through the verification of the candidate from previous employment about his/ her working behaviour and performance. The everyday strengths and weaknesses should be measured to measure the effectiveness of an individual (Alemu, 2016).

There are also some leadership development programs which can promote the effectiveness of the leaders it develops healthy perspectives of leadership in the individuals so that the dark side of leadership is not shown. These development activities can be customised as per the individuals so that the required traits can be developed and they can be motivated to behave positively. Coaching is another means of addressing the ill effects of dark side traits in individuals (Indradevi, 2016). Coaching helps in developing more effective strategies to manage the dark behaviour of individuals. Coaching assists in limiting the negative effects of the dark traits in an individual. The coaches do 360 degree assessment which helps in evaluating and individual, its strengths and limitations as well. It helps in evaluating the dark and bright traits of personality in the individuals. Another measure is leader accountability. If leader is given accountability, the inappropriate behaviour can be handled. Without accountability, leaders can show ill behaviour, traits and functions. Employee development is another step which could be taken by the organisations where good corporate governance will be promoted and the chances of the emergence of dark traits of leadership will be reduced. Employee development is a continuous process which helps in managing the dysfunctional traits within the organisation’s culture (Linstead, Marechal & Griffin, 2014).

Warning Signs to Look for Before Hiring a Leader

In the Singapore Public Service, the individuals who are been given such responsibilities of being a leader are to be made self aware of their dark and bright traits of leadership and their implications. Some programs and events can be taken up which helps in managing the dark traits of an individual leader. Leadership development programs and coaching can be given which could help in reducing the ill effects of the dark traits of the leaders. The leaders should be guided for their roles so that they could become able to take up new challenges and face them properly (Liu, Liao & Loi, 2012).

There have been examples of failures of big giants like Lehman Brothers, Enron and others which highlighted that how dark side of leadership has brought an end to these. The numbers suggests that there are around 50- 75 percent of leaders who do not perform well. So, it is very important to recognize and treat the problem well for success of the businesses (Slattery, 2009).

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the leaders who get derailed and show up dark traits of leadership can incur lots of cost to the organisation. The costs may not be only in terms of numbers or financial loss but it can also be a loss to the reputation and governance of the organisation.  The essay discusses the meaning of dark leadership traits and effects of dark and bright traits of leadership in the companies. It also discusses the characteristics of the dark side and bright side of leadership. Also, the measures are been discussed which could be taken for reducing the impact of the dark side of leadership. Leadership is not always fruitful but it can be harmful too. It can be finally concluded that the organisations must ensure that their selection techniques of employees are so effective that they are not ending up with the selection of ineffective leaders for the workplace. It does not only lower down the productivity of the employees but also the morale of the staff.

It is recommended to the organisations that they should develop some leadership development programs so that the dark traits of leadership can be managed and the leaders can be made self aware about their dark or bright traits of leadership. Leadership should be such which empowers the team members and provides a sense of achievement in the followers. It is about being a role model for the followers. The dark traits should be balanced which can be done by identifying and taking immediate actions on them. The leaders could be made effective by adopting measures like coaching them, employee development, leadership development or proper selection techniques. These could be very helpful in reducing the negative effects of dark traits of leadership in future.

References

Alemu, D S 2016, ‘Dysfunctional Organization: The Leadership Factor’, Open Journal of Leadership.

Fioravante, P L, 2013, ‘An Effective Leadership Revelation-Blending Dark Side and Positivist Traits’, The Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 15(1), p.107.

Harms, P D, Spaina, S M & Hannahb, S T 2011, ‘Leader development and the dark side of personality’, The Leadership Quarterly.Pages 495-509.

Indradevi, R 2016, ‘Toxic Leadership over the Years – A Review’, SMS, Vol. IX, No. 1.

Judge, T A, Piccolo, R F & Kosalka, T 2009, ‘The bright and dark sides of leader traits: A review and theoretical extension of the leader trait paradigm’, The Leadership Quarterly.855–875.

Karakitapog?lu-Aygu¨n, Z &Gumusluoglu, L 2012, ‘The bright and dark sides of leadership: Transformational vs. non-transformational leadership in a non-Western context’, Leadership. SAGE Publication.

Leutner, F, Ahmetoglu, G, Akhtar, R, Chamorro-Premuzic, T 2013, ‘The relationship between the entrepreneurial personality and the Big Five personality traits’, Personality and Individual Differences, 63 (2014), 58-63.

Linstead, S, Marechal, G & Griffin, R W 2014, ‘Theorizing and Researching the Dark Side of Organization’, Organization Studies’, Vol. 35(2). 165-188.

Liu, D, Liao, H & Loi, R, 2012, ‘The dark side of leadership: A three-level investigation of the cascading effect of abusive supervision on employee creativity’, Academy of Management Journal, 55(5), pp.1187-1212.

Nanjundeswaraswamy T S& Swamy, D R 2014, ‘Leadership Styles’, Advances In Management, Vol. 7(2).

Pelletier, K L 2010, ‘Leader toxicity: An empirical investigation of toxic behavior and rhetoric’, Sage Publications.

Sadeghi, A & Pihie, Z A L 2012, ‘Transformational Leadership and Its Predictive Effects on Leadership Effectiveness’, International Journal of Business and Social Science, Vol. 3 No. 7.

Slattery, C 2009, ‘The dark side of leadership’, Semann & Slattery, Sydney. Melbourne.

Takala, T 2010, ‘Dark Leadership, Charisma and Trust’, Psychology,. Scientific research.

Washbush, J & Clements, C 2014, ‘The two faces of leadership: considering the dark side of leader- follower dynamics’, Journal of Workplace Learning.

Watters, A D S 2014, ‘Research Report: The Dark Side of Leadership’, Civil Service College.