As we’ve been building TGS Leadership, we’ve heard hundreds of stories about toxic leaders. While some clearly highlighted dangerously dysfunctional psychopaths, sociopaths, or narcissists, the vast majority of these stories indicated a leader who was trying to drive results, but doing it the wrong way and burning people out.
These stories (and a ton of research into psychosocial safety) helped us identify four things that often occur when a leader is toxic. They increase one or more of four key psychosocial risk factors - anxiety, stimulation, conformity, and ambiguity – collectively known as ASCA. In this article we unpack the ‘tell-tale’ signs of toxic leadership behaviors – highlighting 4 ways to spot a toxic leader:
#1 – Toxic Leaders Like Fear. Effective Leaders Create Focus. Toxic leaders dial up anxiety by creating high levels of fear and worry about relationships and situations. This volatility can be driven by high levels of emotional volatility in the leader, or a preference for creating fear in people to keep them on their toes in the belief this drives performance and results. While this might have a short-term impact, in the long-term it erodes performance as people spend more time in their own heads worrying about their relationship with the leader than they do solving actual business problems. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE: Do people regularly and actively seek out the leader for help and advice, or do they keep their head down and hope the leader doesn’t seek them out?
#2 – Toxic Leaders Say “Get On With It”. Effective Leaders Help You Get On With It. Toxic leaders just want people to ‘get shit done’ without caring about how interested or motivated they are to do it. Toxic leaders take very little ownership for keeping their people ‘in the zone’ and in a ‘flow state’ where they have the right level of stimulation, motivation, and skill to perform at their best. They fail to recognize that people have different motivations, respond differently to stimuli (i.e. hot-desking versus assigned spots), and need skill-building to perform more challenging tasks. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE: Does the leader coach people’s individual skill and motivations for certain tasks, or do they regularly complain that people lack motivation and need to ‘just get on with it’?
#3 – Toxic Leaders Want Agreement. Effective Leaders Seek Alignment. Toxic leaders love conformity - they expect agreement with their views and ideas. They might talk about the value of ‘alignment’ but fail to understand that alignment doesn’t mean agreement – in fact it’s the very different. When people feel they need to agree or suffer consequences, then they are likely to conform – agreeing when they actually disagree. This can lead to disengagement and unintentional sabotage when people don’t follow through or do just enough to ‘tick the box’. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE: Is the leader’s idea the first and last idea in most brainstorming sessions, or is the leader genuinely encouraging and implementing ideas from their team?
#4 – Toxic Leaders Cause Confusion. Effective Leaders Create Clarity. Toxic leaders thrive on ambiguity. They don’t make time to communicate clearly, preferring people “just work it out” and expecting they’ll work it out… or else! Ambiguity can take many forms, from vague instructions to contradictory statements like “Do whatever it takes to get it done, but don’t go into overtime.” This can lead to misdirected effort and anxiety as people stress about how to get it done, the consequences if it's done incorrectly, and the toxic response if they ask for clarity. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE: Do people leave conversations with the leader clear on the ‘What, Why, How, and When’ of the task, or do they spend unnecessary time and energy ‘working it out’?
As things get more complex and uncertain, leaders need to be even better at managing the balancing act of driving results without burning people out. To do this, leaders need a unique blend of personality, virtues and motivation to be effective without being toxic. Boards, CEOs, WHS experts, Recruiters, and People & Culture teams need to accurately measure how leaders really think and act so they mitigate the legislative and commercial risk of poor psychosocial safety in the business.
To find out if your leaders can get shit done while keeping people safe, take the test and talk to us: http://tgsleadership.com
