Simple Steps to Becoming a Toxic Leaders: A Roadmap to The Shadow Side of Leadership

# leadfromyoursoul #abundancemindset #mindsetmatters #successmindset #authenticleadership?#toxicleadership

How malevolent are you?

Limiting our understanding of success solely to meaningful success ignores the dark face of success. Unfortunately, many leaders adopt destructive behaviors to achieve unrivaled success. Being a toxic leader is not an easy feat. It takes tremendous effort and determination to mastermind a forceful rise to power and influence.

Are toxic leaders born toxic? Is it a learnable skill? How hard is it to maintain that fa?ade of invincibility and control?

Toxic leaders can be incompetent, immoral, or both. Which one is worse is open to discussion. Here is a simple roadmap toward toxic leadership:

1. Ditch integrity and indulge in greed

Toxic leaders tend to be inconsistent. Learn to mislead your followers, so they do not have access to the truth. Lie, cheat, and gaslight. For example, I about project deadlines just to prove to your team that they have questionable memory or judgment.

2. Crush dissent and demand compliance

Avoid chaos at any cost. Do not listen to feedback and ignore or downplay the well-being of your team. For instance, force your team to attend a meeting during lunch to increase productivity and maintain order.

3. Hail arrogance

Toxic leaders are always right and are skilled at evading accountability. Play to your followers’ bases fears and reprimand anyone who tries to correct you. For example, make rash decisions and devise new projects without proper planning, and ostracize everyone that attempts to reevaluate your plans.

4. Show them who is boss

Toxic leaders emphasize hierarchy because it gives them power over their subordinates. Control your followers by feeding them illusions and fostering dependence. Masquerade your enormous ego as having the team’s best interest at heart and beguile them with an intoxicating elixir of charisma and malice.

5. Engage in preferential treatment

Discriminate against employees based on gender, age, religious and ethnic backgrounds. This will only inflame the workplace with toxicity and hostility. Every toxic leader has obedient followers that enable cruelty and corruption. Learn how to bully, humiliate and destroy team spirit. Choose scapegoats to delegate blame

6. Embrace Cowardice

Cowardice betrays insecurity and self-doubt. Leaders may commit unethical, illegal, or criminal acts. Fame and fortune may seem too slow to achieve morally, and everyone loves a good deal.? It takes with interiors to achieve excellence, so toxic leaders seek shortcuts.

7. Promote incompetence

Toxic leaders lack the expertise or the willpower to perform their roles effectively. Others who lack the resilience to function under pressure may also lack key leadership competencies. To master this trait, you must learn to be mindless and sloppy with your work.

8. Embrace Selfishness

Malevolent leaders are driven purely by self-interest and may pit team members against each other. Without the restraints of morality and conscience, toxic leaders are free to roam unfettered to ransack and pillage as they please.

Kellerman classified seven types of bad leaders [1]:

1.?????Incompetent -ineffective

2.?????Rigid – unyielding.

3.?????Intemperate- lack self-control.

4.?????Callous - uncaring or unkind.

5.?????Corrupt -lies, cheat and steal.

6.?????Insular - go boundaries between the welfare of their immediate group and outsiders.

7.?????Evil - use power to inflict severe emotional and physical damage.

I am sure we realize I am using humor to make a point. It takes a specific type of mindset to orchestrate toxic leadership. There are countless training, seminars, and consultation program that rave about the success mindset, and very few are willing to explore the sordid reality of the malevolent mindset that promotes success at all costs. Many toxic leaders are driven by their insatiable desire for success. To fully comprehend what something is, it is necessary to explore what it is not.

A business article by Washington Post explains how the ‘Great Resignation’ pandemic was precipitated by many workers exiting their jobs to avoid workplace bullies and toxic leaders. Another article by the Harvard Business Review discusses the effect of organizational factors that nudge a worker to become toxic. The researchers found that “a worker’s environment also substantially influences her propensity to become a toxic leader.” These include the position she holds as well as exposure to other toxic workers [2].

The study concluded that “toxic workers are more productive, at least in terms of the quality of the output.” However, destructive behavior can have detrimental consequences to the individual and collective. Hence there is a potential trade-off between ethics and performance. Pierce and Snyder found that unethical workers enjoy longer tenures [3].

More about leadership and mindset in the upcoming articles, so stay tuned!

Reach out and connect!

I will help you peel off the layers and unearth the fear lurking in the deepest recesses of your mind so that you can truly let go of the old to receive the abundance and blessings of the present moment. To work with me in developing a leadership roadmap for you and/or your team, book a free strategy call at?www.drayaakkari.com. Elevating your leadership is not an easy feat, which is where I come in. I help you uncover your why and create a leadership roadmap specific to your needs. I provide you with accountability,?check-ins, evidenced-based coaching, and professional support from a certified leadership coach credentialed by the International Coaching Federation, an organizational leadership specialist, and an emotional resilience trainer.

Come with me; let’s lead together!

I empower busy and ambitious executives, business owners, and professionals to go from existing to living so they can gain clarity on their purpose, unlock their potential, and elevate their leadership. I am a doctor and a certified leadership coach credentialed by the International Coaching Federation; I have earned a master’s degree in organizational leadership and am a certified emotional resilience mentor and trainer. I have had the pleasure of establishing coaching relationships with leaders from 20 different organizations.

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References

1.?????Kellerman, B. (2008). Bad leadership and ways to avoid it. In Business leadership (pp. 423-432). San Francisco, CA: J. V. Gallos.

2.?????Minor, D., & Michael, H. (2015). Toxic Workers. Retrieved from https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50046

3.?????Pierce, L., & Snyder, J. A. (2013). Unethical demands and employee turnover. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-17.