Loki the Trickster Isn't a Model Leader

Thirty years ago, the business world had a fling with chaos theory—the idea that systems, like markets and companies, are inherently unpredictable, but some order exists within them nonetheless. Tom Peters told us that chaotic markets harbored valuable business opportunities. Meg Wheatley said that companies capable of managing chaos were more adaptive, creative, and resilient than their staid competitors. But I don’t recall anyone recommending chaos as a leadership style—and I can’t find any order hidden in it.

Nevertheless, there are prominent leaders today who seem to have adopted chaos as their modus operandi. They are like Loki, the trickster of Norse mythology—sowers of confusion and discord in their quest for whatever it is they crave. What do they crave? Who knows? Perhaps attention or power or maybe they just like chucking a monkey wrench in the works.

As a company leader and the boss in The Apprentice, Donald Trump was an exemplar of Loki leadership. And, he has carried his penchant for chaos over into his presidency. I’ve read op-eds that claim there is some high design behind the global havoc Trump has unleashed, but, in my opinion, that’s a storyline that makes more sense as a Saturday Night Live skit.   

 Elon Musk also has a distinctly Loki-like approach: With a notable nonchalance, he simultaneously changes course in existing businesses and enters new ones, like solar roofing tiles and flamethrowers. On May 4, during Tesla’s Q1 earnings call, Musk unexpectedly decided to liven things up by abruptly dismissing analyst questions as “boring, boneheaded” and instead, spending 20 minutes of the hour-and-a-quarter conference answering questions posed by fan with a YouTube channel. “I’m not here to convince you to buy our stock,” he said at one point. “Do not buy it if volatility is scary.” (Indeed, Tesla’s stock closed down 5.55 percent the next day.) Since then, Musk has vied for center stage in the Thai cave rescue saga and posted the notorious taking-Tesla-private Tweet that attracted an SEC investigation and investor lawsuits. 

Brandon Truaxe, the CEO of Deciem, a fast-growing Canadian-based beauty products company that expects to record $300 million in sales this year, is another Loki leader. Since January of this year, Truaxe has fired his social media team and started posting bizarre messages on Deciem’s Instagram account, including, as Elle described it: “Closeup videos of him talking disjointedly about the popular skin-care line’s vision, a river flowing around a mass of garbage, and a photo of a dead sheep, captioned with a promise to never test products on animals.” He fired co-CEO Nicola Kilner, which prompted the company’s CFO to quit, and then, rehired her. He also emailed all of the company’s employees, "I'm done with DECIEM and EVERYTHING. No need to discuss."

As Trump would likely attest from his experience in business and politics, one big benefit of being a Loki leader is that you get a lot of attention. Except for a few weeks, over the past year, searches for Elon Musk have consistently outnumbered searches for his corporate antithesis Jeff Bezos, according to Google Trends. And even as media and customer reactions to Brandon Truaxe’s bizarre actions turned negative, the company’s products continued selling briskly. “All they’re doing is creating more sales for me,” Truaxe told WWD.

Before you adopt Loki leadership for its Barnum-like marketing effects, however, you probably should pause to consider its effects on the people and organizations that you are charged with leading. While it can be perversely entertaining to watch a Loki at work, working for one isn’t much fun at all.

These are leaders who have a fetish for defying expectations—so, clearly, consistency is not their strong suit. They say things that they don’t mean and mean things that they don’t say. They jump the rails of process and take off for territories unknown on a whim. They fire people for not following orders and for following orders. They refuse to acknowledge any authority or interests—such as the values of the organization or its board—as greater than their own.

This inconsistency and unpredictability results in a high-stress environment in which even highly-motivated people burn out. Last year, The Guardian published a report on the working conditions in Tesla’s Fremont, CA plant that gave a flavor of what happens when the boss makes promises that can’t be kept and then, raises the pressure by bringing his desk—and a sleeping bag—to the assembly line. “I knew people were having a hard time, working long hours, and on hard jobs. I wanted to work harder than they did, to put even more hours in. Because that’s what I think a manager should do,” said Musk, with a logic that defies reason.

Working at Deciem also has been described in less than glowing terms: orders from the CEO arrive via Instagram; people are promoted or passed over willy-nilly; the company lacks organization and reporting structure. After unexpectedly firing his co-CEO, who had been at Deciem since its founding in 2013, Brandon Truaxe said, “We still have a few people who need to go — I can feel it.” A reassuring note for the rest of the team to be sure. 

The human and organizational problems that Loki leadership creates are legion. Morale plummets. Fear becomes pervasive. Burnout ensues. Turnover rises. Productivity falls. Eventually, financial results must suffer.

When that happens Loki leaders might find themselves following in the footsteps of their mythological namesake (in a metaphorical sense). The other Norse gods tied the trickster down inside a cave, using the entrails of his son. Then, they arranged to have a serpent drip excruciatingly painful venom on him. And still Loki unleashed chaos—his writhing caused earthquakes.