Own Your Step - Family Business Leadership Development and Culture Advisory
Own Your Step - Family Business Leadership Development and Culture Advisory
We are witnessing the rise of toxic leaders and workplaces. We tend to choose or follow a very different kind of leader. We hire and promote the psychopaths, the narcissists, the bullies and the autocrats dedicated to self-interest.
Their long-term impact can damage and even destroy organizations (and even countries). Many people easily forgive these toxic leaders and the harm they cause because they measure their success solely in financial terms or because they bring charismatic entertainment value to the organization.
Toxic workplaces can be characterized as follows:
All sticks and no carrots. Management focuses solely on what employees are doing wrong or correcting problems and rarely gives positive feedback for what is going right. The best performers receive some carrots and the rest get sticks.
Bullies rule the roost. Management either directly bullies employees or tolerates it when it occurs among employees.
Losing the human touch. People are considered to be objects or expenses rather than assets, and there is little concern for their happiness and/or well-being. Leaders lack compassion and empathy for employees.
Toxic leadership is a growing and costly phenomenon. Theo Veldsman of the University of Johannesburg recently published a study on the growth and impact of toxic leadership on organizations. He contends that “there is a growing incidence of toxic leadership in organizations across the world.” Veldsman says that anecdotal and research evidence shows that one out of every five leaders is toxic, and he argues that his research shows it is closer to three out of every ten leaders.
According to a 2010 survey conducted by the Workplace Bullying Institute, 35 percent of the American workforce (or 53.5 million people) has directly experienced bullying—or “repeated mistreatment by one or more employees that takes the form of verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, humiliation or sabotage of work performance”—while an additional 15 percent said they have witnessed bullying at work. Approximately 72 percent of those bullies are bosses.
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