The Toxic Leadership Traits That Ruin Lives and Organisations

Like many autistic people, I have often been told that I have a problem with authority. I understand why people think this of me. I regularly challenge authority figures and frequently show them little respect. But I do not have an issue with authority in general. Any coherent society or organisation needs leadership, vision, and direction.

What I have a problem with is the behaviour of many individuals in positions of authority. Another aspect of how being autistic impacts me is that when I see injustice of any kind, I can rarely keep my mouth shut. So when I see injustice caused or permitted by someone in authority, I almost always challenge them. This has made my career prospects no good at all, but it has meant I have some chance of sleeping at night. When I see injustice and do nothing, I am often left in turmoil for some time. I just cannot walk on by.

While any injustice is likely to anger me, three particular failings of authority are guaranteed to rile me up and provoke a response.

Power for the Sake of Power or the Trappings That Come with It

Having any form of power over anything, particularly anybody, is an awesome responsibility. It is not something to ever be entered into lightly. Yet I see so many people seeking positions of power simply for what they can get out of it themselves. It could be for a higher salary or other perks, to impose their will on others regardless of what is best for them or the organisation, or to stroke their ego. None of these are acceptable reasons to seek a position of authority.

Of course, I am not saying that those in senior positions do not deserve to be well compensated for their responsibilities. If you are in charge of hundreds or thousands of people or millions of pounds worth of assets or budgets, you should be properly rewarded for the load that you carry. But that should not be the sole driving force behind taking the position. If it is, it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and importance of leadership.

I have only ever managed a handful of people at once, and that responsibility has always weighed heavily on me. I cannot conceive of how it must feel to have a direct duty of care to a larger number of people. It is one of many reasons I am not a leader and do not wish to be one. However, it will never go well when someone takes a senior role solely for their own self-interests. Leaders should be servants to those they lead, not set themselves up as objects of worship. Respect is earned; it does not come automatically with a title. As soon as your justification for asking someone to do something is reduced to “because I said so and I am in charge”, you have lost all moral authority.

A leader who is only in it for themselves is a horrific thing. This tends to quickly lead to dereliction of important responsibilities and the decay of whatever they lead. I cannot and will not stop challenging this behaviour.

Failure in Their Duty of Care

Leaders are stewards of people, assets, or organisations, often all three. Yet these responsibilities seem beyond the comprehension of many in leadership positions. They view all of these things as tools at their disposal for whatever purposes they see fit and are as happy disposing of large numbers of dedicated employees as they are replacing a broken old machine with a new one.

Organisations are bigger than any individual, including the one at the top. They were usually there before this person came along and will be there long after they are gone (unless an inept leader drives them into the ground). The leader is responsible for caring for every aspect of that organisation as they would for their close family.

This does not mean there is never a need to make difficult decisions. It is a fact of life that sometimes closures and redundancies are the only option. But there is a world of difference between being made redundant by a leader who obviously really cares about their people and has visibly left no stone unturned in trying to avoid this situation and by another who seems to have no interest in the impact of their decisions on other human beings.

Leaders need to both care and show that they care. When all you see or hear of a leader is their decisions that harm the organisation or its people, it is very hard to believe that they really do care, whatever they say. Good leaders listen to those they lead, admit it when they get things wrong, and welcome difficult questions rather than ducking them.

Sadly, the reality of many organisations is that my favourite demotivational slogan could not be more appropriate: Leaders are like eagles; we don’t have either of them here.

Out of Their Depth

Finally, I struggle with people in leadership positions who are clearly out of their depth and not equipped to perform the job they have taken properly. This seems to be becoming more of an issue every day. People are assessed for senior positions based on where else they have worked (even if they failed there), where they went to school, who they know, and how well they can talk themselves up—anything except their proven ability to do the job.

Whenever we see a senior leader giving an interview or being cross-examined by an enquiry after some scandal, I am usually struck by two things. Firstly, they seem not to really get just how devastating the disaster they have overseen was for others, often including their own staff or customers. Secondly, they are simply and visibly not up to their jobs. They may have been in an organisation for quite some time but still have little grasp of what it does, what many of their employees' jobs involve, and the impact on others of their decisions. They lack a basic understanding of their organisation's critical issues and seem to be figureheads, while others do whatever they like in the background. There is a total absence of self-awareness and humility.

Look at the success of the “Undercover Boss” TV show. It works so well because, without fail, the leader who goes undercover discovers that life on the front line in their organisation is not as remote as they imagined it to be. If a leader ever went to the shopfloor in disguise and found that everyone was happy and everything worked perfectly, there would be no show.

This would all be laughable if it did not have such a huge negative impact on so many people daily. There are some excellent leaders, but there are also a considerable number of dreadful ones and people who have no business being in positions of authority of any kind. Not everyone is cut out to be a leader. I do not envy those in positions in any way. But when I see positions of authority being abused or neglected, I will always challenge them. I wish more others did, too, as bad leaders only survive as long as they are accepted by those who they lead. It is the only way that change will come.

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