Is Any Leader Affecting the Business?

The volatility and high complexity of organizational environments present demanding challenges for management today, many things have changed and leadership is one of them, for example, the way people are led at work can lead to different results, which is probably one of the reasons why leadership has been studied so extensively.

Do you think that toxic leadership directly affects the business?

In my experience, I consider that one of the most aggressive dangers for effective leadership is, without a doubt, when we have a false leader or destructive leadership, under the mask of attention and cordiality, consider, for example, a person who arrives greets you, but when he addresses the team he is autocratic and hierarchical, to say the least, since the idea is to impose himself on his collaborators.

Do you think this does not happen?

According to studies by Nielsen and Einarsen, destructive leadership is considered to be any set of systematic behaviours carried out by a leader, supervisor or manager that violate the legitimate interest of an organization by undermining or sabotaging its objectives, tasks, resources and effectiveness and reducing motivation, well-being and satisfaction of its employees.

I believe that intentionality does not necessarily exist, but rather that it may be due to a lack of ability to adequately manage the company, executives, intermediate positions and of course the lower-ranking collaborator.

In your experience, is it good that there is this type of leader under your command?

Reflecting, while some types of leadership are defined positively, others emphasize the negative consequences, let's think about two of these opposite types of leadership for example: empowering and toxic leaderships, well the first one is defined by its positive effects on subordinates, empowering them, the second is defined by its adverse effects that undermine the development and personal expression of subordinates, hence both the understanding of what behaviours make leadership more empowering; like what behaviours make a leader toxic are equally essential to disseminate good practices or prevent bad ones, for this we must be alert, generally a toxic leader only wants to look good with the upper level and mistreats his team to look good.

How does leadership affect our occupational health? And our performance?

If what we want is to have a sustainable leadership that is also resilient, we must observe these 4 types or currents of leadership that eliminate this possibility in many companies:

Well, firstly, unfortunately, they combine with each other to a greater or lesser degree, and can be compatible with leadership traits that do not necessarily have to be negative.

For example, a supervisor or director of a company may have ways of doing things that harm his organization, but also others that neutralize that damage and thus the business survives.

Types of harmful leadership in any environment

Tyrannical leadership:

This kind of leadership is based on placing above all the goals and purpose of the organization at the expense of its employees, instead of through them, the harsh reality is that you can expect a way of managing employees that does It would be quite similar to the way of managing a person with psychopathic traits, masking the good of the company, and they will have no problem humiliating, belittling and manipulating their employees to achieve their objective.

Derailed leadership:

This kind of destructive leadership is even worse, if the first one is fulfilled, and it is combined with this one, then this general contempt for its employees is reproduced in behaviours of harassment and humiliation towards them, there is contempt for the company in parallel own organization, breaching the tasks of its responsibility and that are reflected in practices such as absenteeism, fraud or the theft of company resources.

Disloyal leadership:

It is a quality that derives from good leadership. For example, when we reviewed some aspects of ethical leadership, we emphasized that an ethical manager who had a special concern for his employees would not necessarily be a good leader, so In this way, the disloyal leader prioritizes gaining the support of his employees above all things, even if this causes slight damage to the company and very strong damage to his collaborators. It is a type of leadership that does not hide bad intentions. , but that can be harmful for the organization in the event that it does not know how to see the limits of that climate of intimidation that it intends to generate, since it can cause the opposite of what it seeks, "keep its employees".

Laissez-faire leadership:

Well, this type of leadership has a more technical name, similar to mental illness, no return, well this type of leadership has the particularity that it is probably the one that is most familiar to most people, without a doubt It is, as the name itself indicates, a leader who, due to his position, should make decisions, but who in practice chooses either to delegate that decision-making to other people or, much worse, does not make it clear in any way who it corresponds to decision-making.

The latter can not generate anything other than chaos within an organization, faced with the demand of the supervisor or manager, the employee feels frustrated by not knowing exactly who to turn to when a situation must be resolved, in some cases it can generate a climate of relative calm, but in reality what he hides is blindness to the problems that person must solve, since he does not allow anyone else to make a decision that he did not approve and that sooner or later ends up forming such a big ball that it explodes in form of conflict, there is not necessarily bad intention on the part of the leader, but rather it is due to a lack of resources to hold the position.

I know that this type of leadership in mature and intelligent companies has already been eradicated, in retrospect, it is not about emporiums or businesses with very high income and structures, it is about the objective of the business to be competitive and with results, however, the study indicates that these types of leaders are still deeply rooted in some companies.

For your part, it seems to me that a toxic leader is someone who constantly exhibits dysfunctional behaviour and toxic traits such as lack of integrity and honesty, selfishness and arrogance who focuses on his ambition and maintaining power without concern for the well-being of others.

How does it affect the business?

The toxic behaviour of a leader is related to the psychological distress of employees, with adverse effects that can range from loss of self-esteem, withdrawal, agitation, avoidance, worry and withholding of comments and contributions, definitely low performance, there are no ideas any more, why there is no motivation, it ends up being done as the toxic leader says, why is there no other way, they are attentive to what they see, what the members of their team say, who by the way also believes that they are your property, you have to find other means to be able to express what is happening and that it is understood correctly.

Generally, there are several employees who dislike an area where there are these leaders, however, the upper level is told that they are unruly, or that they are being managed, however, the impact is not seen because it is very well hidden.

Those of us who have the great privilege of being leaders, can observe our colleagues and also question, hey, what is happening?, the problems originate in one place and it becomes evident.

What are the traits of a toxic leader?

Toxic leaders consistently display traits that bring down their team and impede business goals. There are many ways that toxic leadership behaviors can manifest, but they can generally be boiled down to three main factors:

They are arrogant.

Toxic leaders don't listen to feedback from their direct reports and assume that their perception is always the most correct. They do not like to be corrected even when they can be proven wrong and blame others for their mistakes. Often, they are narcissistic control freaks because they think their way is always the best.

They lack empathy.

Toxic leaders see their coworkers as competitors rather than teammates and try to advance their careers by any means necessary. They will take credit for their team's ideas and will do anything to paint themselves in the best possible light. They also gossip, publicly shame their team members, and harshly criticize them.

Furthermore, they are bad at their job.

Unsurprisingly, these toxic leadership traits make it challenging to do the job of a leader effectively. Toxic managers are almost always incompetent on top of everything else. This can lead to micromanagement, disorganization, poor communication, and a negative attitude.

Often these toxic leadership traits can be hard to identify right away because the leader has found a way to cover them up with charisma or an appearance of ability.

How do you deal with a toxic leader?

I recommend that as a leader, if you notice that a bad manager has been hired, you should address the problem before your best employees leave, unfortunately, you don't always have that option if you work with a bad manager, so here are some tips for dealing with toxic leadership in the workplace.

Don't become part of the problem.

Whatever you do, please do not lower yourself to their level, gossip or try to play their games, you will only contribute to a toxic environment.

Rethink your mindset.

Even though you may not like this person, try to give them the benefit of the doubt, treat every interaction like a clean slate and try not to read too much into anything they say, instead assume the best and stay positive even against negativity.

Always keep records.

Whether your toxic manager is malicious or disorganized, it's crucial to get everything in writing whenever possible, document your communications so you have evidence on your side if there is ever a question as to why you made a particular decision.

Emotionally disconnect.

It's understandable that many people feel a deep connection to your job, but at the end of the day your job isn't worth it, don't take anything your manager says personally; Don't expect to be recognized for doing a good job, it will never come, instead, maintain a healthy work-life balance and rely on other sources of satisfaction.

Improve your resume.

Even if you don't intend to quit your job, knowing that you can if the going gets tough will give you a sense of security.

     “Toxic leadership does not have to keep you from a job you love”

If you adjust your expectations and manage your reactions, you may survive incompetent management, however it would help if you didn't have to suffer and leaving may be the best option for your sanity and your career if the situation becomes untenable.

There are limits to everything, this is one of the worst examples of leadership, however, there is the background along with authoritarian leadership, horizontal communication is already practised in some places, in some places stress was already included as a work disease and the laws have been somewhat strengthened in this sense.

Remember when you wake up to go to work with all the desire in the world and desire to succeed that even toxic leadership does not take it away from you, we go with will and a lot of strength, and I invite women in a very special way to empower themselves, since unfortunately some pseudo-leaders believe that they are an easy target, so you have to be better than them, if you are a partner or a leader, and you realize this, you have to report it and protect and help the woman and everyone, the purpose is to have a good place to work and think! It is still our second home.

The Oxford Handbook of Leadership – References Aasland, M. S., Skogstad, A., Nielsen, M. B., 86 Einarsen, S. (2010).

I await your comments on the platform, it is important to collaborate to know that awareness is being created and that we are in the process of being better humans and our quality will increase with respect for others.

His friend,