Toxic leadership

Mind Set: All say 'aye' to the captain
...by SHALINI SINGH, Apr 11, 2010, 01.06pm IST in TIMES OF INIDA.

Leaders can make or mar. And a 'toxic' leader can poison the whole
system, says Shalini Singh
Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just
may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just
—Blaise Pascal , French mathematician

There is evidence that toxic leadership is responsible for more human
suffering than ever before. Toxicity is created when someone
responsible for a group of people or an organization leaves it worse
off after the engagement. Hitler is a powerful — and evil — example of
toxic leadership. Millions of examples abound through history. Almost
everyone will be familiar with the toxicity introduced in the work,
home or community environment by destructive guardians, inept,
insecure bosses, corrupt politicians and even sexually perverse
religious leaders.

Can the poison created by toxic leadership be contained? It is widely
acknowledged that most medical ailments are rooted in enduring
psychological distress but there is not quite as much recognition of
the debilitating effects of toxic leadership. People are generally
accepting of the wilful abuse of power and do little to challenge
their environment. Often, toxic leaders are people who rise to
positions of high authority but are unabashedly consumed by their need
for personal glory. They are characterized by low levels of self
awareness, which allow them to ignore niggling matters of ethics and
moral fairplay.

Money and power become their primary motivators. Toxic leaders can be
spotted a mile away: these are the people who exercise complete
control by rewarding sycophants and edging colleagues with talent and
the facility for critical thought to the bottom of the pile. Toxic
leaders are threatened by intelligence, character and creativity in
the people around them and they will generally do anything to
eliminate such individuals from the game.

The classic example of toxic leadership and the small-mindedness that
goes with it is the retiring chief executive. Upon retirement, a toxic
leader will carefully pick a mediocre buffoon as successor. This
ensures a continuous legacy of toxicity and a higher level of
mediocrity in the successor. In turn, this ensures that people make
unfavourable comparisons about the change of guard. Those with low
self-worth (this is a characteristic of toxic leaders) generally
over-compensate by pursuing material accomplishment at any cost. Why
does the toxic leader flourish? It is a puzzling issue considering
that large numbers of people in the workforce end up deeply, often
permanently psychologically scarred because of the leader's toxic
behaviour.

Sometimes, the relationship between oppressor and oppressed becomes
almost an unholy bond, a behavioural pattern that cannot end without
external help. This can take the form of spiritual and psychological
counselling for the victim. Often, the oppressor is equally doomed to
his cycle of unfair, dysfunctional behaviour, though this may be less
obvious. One cannot simply condone victims of unjust toxic leadership.
Being a victim does not mean one can never take control of the
situation and break the cycle of injustice. Oppressors get free reign
when their victims see no reason to change the situation in the
foolish belief they actually benefit from their corrupt ways. The more
enlightened worker prefers not to become either victim or beneficiary,
choosing instead to stay away and not 'get their hands dirty'.

Toxic leadership is not new. It is a societal affliction that is as
old as time. Even an institution of great antiquity such as the church
is reluctant to clean up, to weed out the toxic leadership that
controversially looked the other way when 'celibate' priests became
serial paedophiles. Inevitably, toxic leadership creates great demand
for fixers, hustlers and pimps to fill positions of authority. This is
arguably an important factor in the rising incidence of women and
child abuse and trafficking around the world.

This, because the toxic leader sits at the top of the pile, profiting
from unsavoury criminal activity while fixers, hustlers and pimps work
overtime to keep the empire going. Needless to say the leader's hands
remain notionally clean. Financial fraud is also on the rise and this
too indicates toxic leadership. The recent global financial meltdown
offered the clearest sign possible of the extent to which toxic
leaders can distort an entire system, turning questioning colleagues
into passive, mute victims.

In the corporate sector, toxic leaders do by bullying their team and
ensuring that only the woefully inadequate are rewarded in order to
buy their unquestioning loyalty. What can companies do about this?
Intelligent inquiry will reveal the decline in a company's
productivity because the toxic leader has perpetrated the deliberate
murder of enthusiasm. There might also be an increase in attrition as
genuine talent starts to haemorrhage from the company. The recent
meltdown illustrated the way organizational rot can go deep to the
point of sudden corporate collapse.

Everyone gets the leader he or she deserves. There is no reason to
suffer a toxic leader. Effective leadership is about celebrating human
uniqueness. We can invoke positive leadership by abandoning passivity
and challenging ourselves as well as the people around us.
Mahatma Gandhi freed India from foreign rule but political liberation
is meaningless if we continue to suffer tyranny. Those who continue to
be enslaved by passivity deny themselves the possibility of attaining
their true potential. The change must come from within. As Roman
philosopher Seneca said: "He is most powerful who has power over
himself."