Such leaders share common personality traits, notably including narcissism, hubris and
Destructive leadership behaviour is defined as the systematic and repeated behaviour by a leader, supervisor or manager that violates the legitimate interest of the organisation by undermining and/or sabotaging the organisation's goals, tasks, resources, and effectiveness and/or the motivation, well-being or job ...
excessive use of power, control, or influence.
Hypothesis 2: All three destructive leadership behaviors (i.e., abusive supervision, exploitative leadership, organization directed destructive leadership) will have a positive relationship with general turnover intentions.
Two Manifestations of Destructive Leadership: Encouraging Followers to Pursue Destructive Goals and Using Destructive Methods of Influence With Followers. The essence of leadership lies in identifying goals and influencing followers to pursue those goals (House & Shamir, 1993; Yukl, 2006).
Narcissism, Hubris and Machiavellianism are three core dark traits of leadership.
A leader whose personality is composed of a trio of negative personality traits — narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism — is a dark leader. Broken down, narcissism is composed of grandiosity, perceived superiority and entitlement. Psychopathy is when someone is emotionally cold, remorseless and impulsive.
Perhaps two of the most well-known destructive organizational leaders are Enron's Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay. During their time at the helm they are said to have created an environment of 'benign followers' and used management practices that instilled fear in their workers.
A toxic leadership triangle—destructive leaders, susceptible followers, and conducive environments—combine to produce the poisonous results. Yet, a great deal of the research on toxicity largely disregards the role of followers and organizational environments.
Characteristics of Destructive Leaders
The concept of the Toxic Triangle was originally outlined by Art Padilla, Robert Hogan, and Robert Kaiser in their 2007 whitepa- per The toxic triangle: Destructive leaders, susceptible followers, and condu- cive environments.
Dominating: Takes much of meeting time expressing self-views and opinions. Tries to take control by use of power, time, etc. Rushing: Encourages the group to move on before the task is complete. Gets "tired" of listening to others and working as a group.
An expression of hostility, anger and aggression by destroying and damaging property or yourself.
Two types of followers support destructive leadership. Conformers passively allow bad leaders to assume power because their unmet needs and immaturity make them vulnerable to such influences. Colluders support destructive leaders because they want to promote themselves in an enterprise consistent with their worldview.
A leader's toxic behavior is related to employees' psychological distress, with adverse effects that may range from loss of self-worth, withdrawal, agitation, avoidance, worry, and holding feedback and contributions.
Narcissistic leaders are self-absorbed and hold beliefs of entitlement and superiority. Their aggressive tendencies in the face of criticism and inclinations to validate their self-worth by derogating others may lead others to perceive them as being abusive.
A bad leader is the boss you despise working for every day; the one who never acknowledges your achievements and only emphasizes your faults. A good leader truly believes in the work he does. He has a strong sense of purpose that materializes in even the most menial tasks.
The dark triad personality refers to three negative personality traits: narcissism (entitled self-importance), Machiavellianism (entitled self-importance), Machiavellianism (strategic exploitation and deceit), and subclinical psychopathy (callousness and cynicism), which all share malevolent features.
Psychologists have identified three traits that make up the sinister-sounding "Dark Triad": narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy.
Trust, empathy, and mentoring constitute the foundations of leadership.