Toxic Leadership

• Narcissistic managers, including classic narcissists, control freaks and paranoid managers
• Unethical managers, including antisocial managers and unethical opportunists
• Aggressive managers, including, ruthless managers, bullies, homicidal managers, chauvinists, volatile and frantic managers
• Rigid managers, including compulsive, authoritarian, dictatorial, and passive-aggressive managers.

Given such an extensive array of toxic types, identifying a type for the toxic manager or leader could become a time-consuming business. Thankfully, occupational psychologist Adrian Furnham provides us with just nine toxic characteristics to look out for, namely: [3]

1. Inconsistency and Unpredictability

Rather than making a stable environment for their team, toxic leaders tend to be the ones whose behavior is unpredictable. You can never be sure what the toxic manager will say or do next.

2. Emotional Sensitivity

Toxic leaders are notoriously moody. They also take offense easily, harbor grudges, and are prone to great mood swings, especially when stressed.

3. Self-Indulgence

Toxic leaders are often deeply selfish individuals. They also tend to be hedonistic, which can cause trouble if their pleasures are addictive (and often they are).

4. Inability to Plan

Toxic leaders tend to live for the moment. As a result they can’t or won’t plan for future eventualities for themselves, their staff, their products/services or their organization.

5. Restlessness and Thrill-Seeking

Toxic leaders get bored easily and can’t seem to pay attention. They are difficult to work for, because they often change their mind, can’t sit still and pay little or no attention to others.

6. Lack of Faith in Learning

Many toxic leaders have few educational qualifications and don’t value them in their staff or in themselves.

7. Poor Emotional Control

Toxic leaders embrace their inner child – they shout, weep, sulk, and gush, often without any apparent sense of embarrassment.

8. Low Regard for Skill Attainment

Toxic leaders are suspicious of team members who want to improve their skills. They claim that gut feeling or experience has got them where they are today.

9. Poor Physical Health

The toxic manager is not usually health-conscious in any way, so tends to be prone to catching any minor illnesses that do the rounds at work.

From Toxic Traits to Personality Disorders

Psychological studies show that an individual’s early experiences help to shape their personality traits. As a person matures, common traits such as arrogance may become more pronounced and start to be annoying to others. If traits become rigid and self-defeating over time, this can start to impair how a person functions socially and professionally. When this point is reached, the person is said to have a personality disorder. Of these disorders, the most common, ranked in order are: [4]

• Antisocial/Psychopathic Personality Disorder

Individuals with this disorder exhibit a disregard for, and violation of others’ rights. It is likely that they will have a history of being difficult or dangerous.

• Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Individuals have an insatiable need to be admired and adored, while lacking empathy for others. They are self-centered, selfish and egotistical to the point of destruction.

• Paranoid Personality Disorder

Individuals are characterized by an unhealthy distrust and suspicion of others. They are convinced that others inside and outside the organization are ‘out to get them’ which makes it difficult for them to function as objective and rational human beings.

• Schizoid Personality Disorder

Schizoid individuals find it particularly difficult to express their emotions and they appear detached from social relationships. They come across as emotionally cold and distant, and have poor emotional intelligence.

• Histrionic Personality Disorder

Unlike individuals with Schizoid Personality Disorder, histrionic individuals are excessively emotional, and attention-seeking, turning even the smallest occurrence into a drama.

• Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder

These individuals are obsessed with order and control and are compelled to behave in ways that help them achieve this, whether that is incessant rearranging of their desk, or repeated handwashing. They may believe that something terrible will happen if they do not stick to a particular order or way of doing things.

Personality disorders can vary from mild to severe forms, with symptoms often becoming worse when an individual is under stress. Personality disorders are difficult to treat, and usually require psychotherapy.

The Toxic Organization

Manfred Kets de Vries, a clinical professor of leadership, believes that is not just individuals, but entire organizations that can exhibit toxic behaviors. In his book The Neurotic Organization, he identifies the following five different kinds of organizational neuroses:

• Paranoid
• Compulsive
• Dramatic
• Depressive
• Schizoid

Such neuroses may develop as a result of a leader’s toxic behavior, which then permeates the entire organization. In other organizations, a toxic climate develops over many years, as a result of what he terms ‘an irrational organizational culture’.

The Toll of Toxic Leaders

‘Toxic leaders rise to their stations in life over the carcasses of those who work for them.’ [5]

It goes without saying that toxic leaders are bad for their team and bad for business. They perceive individuals as either with them or against them, with no half measures. In such a climate, many employees stop thinking for themselves, lest they make a decision that provokes their leader’s anger. Demoralized, they tend to become less productive too. Many employees who work for toxic leaders face an emotional rollercoaster ride at work, while others are simply forced to leave.

In a 2015 study of US workers, 50% said they'd left their job to get away from their manager. [6] A 2018 UK study revealed 55% of respondents quit because of a bad boss. [7]

Unmasking the Toxic Leader

For an organization that suspects it has a toxic leader in its midst, sometimes simply observing the individual is enough to confirm suspicions. Their toxic behavior and the affect it is having on other employees may be woefully apparent.

In less obvious cases, clients or customers can often provide important clues about toxic leaders, especially if prompted for their feedback on the managerial strengths of the organization – often it is what or who they don’t mention that is the giveaway.

Overheads can also provide important clues about toxic leaders. Most toxic leaders will have departments that, although productive, have unusually high absence and/or staff turnover rates. Several staff leaving a department at once is often the sign of a toxic leader at work.

Taking Action

As with so many things, the best way to tackle toxic behavior is to prevent it from occurring in the first place. Organizations can strive to do this by:

Developing an organizational culture that strongly discourages toxic behavior.

• Ensuring a rigorous hiring processes that screens out those who are likely to be, or become, toxic managers. For example, through behavioral questioning (e.g. ‘tell me about a time that went well, or not so well in your previous job’, etc).
• Rewarding and promoting leaders who demonstrate that leadership success does not require toxic behavior.

Where toxic behavior is apparent, it is important to talk to the individual to try to get to the root of the problem. For instance, their behavior may have become toxic due to an ongoing stressful situation in their personal life.

It is important to remember that though their leadership style may have become toxic, toxic leaders have got to a position of authority because they are good at particular aspects of their job, and how toxic their behavior is should be balanced with what they bring to the organization. This may influence whether an organization chooses to try to rehabilitate them.

If an organization decides to try to help a toxic manager, they should be offered coaching with a qualified professional, who can get to the root of their toxic behavior and help them to change.

It is also advisable to encourage the individual to have a medical investigation to assess whether any underlying condition could be driving their toxic behavior, e.g. anxiety, depression, etc.

Conclusion

Nobody is perfect. We all have our own particular behaviors, some that are engaging and others that are less so. For leaders to achieve positions of authority and responsibility, they require certain characteristics, such as self-confidence and even charisma to take them to the top. However, such behaviors can become exaggerated and prove detrimental to the organization. It is important, therefore to be able to spot even the earliest signs of toxic leadership, and intervene to prevent such behaviors from deteriorating further.