In today’s modern age of Human Resources, employee protection laws, workers’ rights, and employment litigation; bosses can no longer act in a coercive or abusive manner to get what they want. They must lead and motivate their employees, not withhold wages and evict them from their homes as landowners would do in the agricultural age and industrial revolution. This would lead me to think that we must now have a stellar force of capable and caring managers, bosses, CEO’s and chairmen; but this is far from the case.
I’ve personally encountered more than a few bad leaders and the kind of bosses you would give half your paycheck to never have to deal with them again. Admittedly, most of the culprits were themselves the business owner, so they had no-one to acknowledge their short-comings and rightfully fire them, but they would have a long history of turnover and retention issues that should give them a hint of their ineptitude. But why is it so difficult to be a good leader? Since we’ve identified key skills and traits in leadership, why can’t every manager and business owner, government representative and parent be better at it?
Research has shown that there are key personality traits that define a good leader. These are called the ‘Big Five’ or the five factor personality theory and they are: neuroticism; extraversion; openness, agreeableness; and conscientiousness (Northouse, p.26).
It is great that we can identify these traits as we can identify and test for them to be sure our leaders have them in abundance for our needs. The problem lies in that there are negative traits for leadership and these are very similar in appearance to the positive traits; they can be very difficult to test for, and usually only arise once the person has taken on their position of power (PSU, p.6).
Have we seen some of these types of bad bosses before?
The tyrant or bullying boss who is impulsive and argumentative, can fly off the handle and is not to be reckoned with. She may suffer from low emotional intelligence or better put; social intelligence. This is the kind of awareness you need to have to navigate social situations and consists of empathy, confidence, self-awareness, and self-regulation (Northouse, p.28). She may have plenty of assertion and neuroticism that is required for leadership – but perhaps too much of this leads to the tyrannical behavior.
Another type; a narcissistic boss is very difficult to spot prior to the hire. “Narcissists believe that they are the center of the universe and everything is about them.” (Riggio, 2009)
The problem with narcissism is that it is very similar to extraversion; one of the Big Five – a self-assured confidence, but the problem is that it is toxic and this boss will harm their followers on the mission to fulfill their own agenda.
So it seems to be that it can be pretty hard to weed out the bad leaders from among the good. Perhaps it is time to start testing for negative personality traits as well as positive and then maybe we can all walk into work a little more happily.
Reference Sources
Riggio, E. R. (2009, June 4) How to Spot a Bad Leader II: Really Bad Leaders Psychology Today. Retrieved on January 22, 2014 from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/200906/how-spot-bad-leader-ii-really-bad-leaders
Pennsylvania State University (2013): Lesson 2 Commentary. Retrieved January 22, 2014, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp14/psych485/001/content/02_lesson/01_page.html
Image Sources
1. Retrieved January 22, 2014, from http://technorati.com/business/gurus/article/bad-boss-revolution/
2. Retrieved January 22, 2014, from http://www.chicagonow.com/grateful-miserable-work/2013/02/are-you-an-awful-manager/
In your post you talk about the tyrant or bullying boss and the Narcissist boss that are horrible to work for. I agree and I have worked for a couple of these with private companies where you mentioned the owner not having anyone over them to right their wrongs and help them learn. This is problematic for them and they will never learn. I have worked for a really horrible boss in a large corporation that did have HR support and did some extremely wrong things. He did end up getting let go and the company back pedaled to make things right. I have come to the conclusion that the individuals who are best at leadership are extraverts, open, agreeable and conscientious. Even though Northouse mentions Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhardt (2002) finding “Extraversion was the factor most strongly associated with leadership (p. 27)” in their study, it is interesting that more leaders are not extraverts.
Have you ever worked with a leader that is not a horrible boss or leader? What aspects or attributes did they have that made them so great, in your opinion? I personally have worked with some really good ones and I think my opinion of good is based off of what I like in management. Not necessarily the types that Northouse describes but my personality type and what meshes with me. I would imagine that is the same for most everyone…Is it for you?
I so agree with you with the term social intelligence. For me personally that’s where I found most of my success as a leader. I lead every group and every person differently base on the personalities I encounter. For example, usually with new or young employees I have more a coaching or counseling style and with older more season employee I am more demarcated. With that said, I believe social intelligence is probably the 2nd most important factor for being an effective leader.
I agree with you, there needs to be some sort of black cloud negativity trait test. The
darkside of personality, Northouse (2013), mentions leaders who have interpersonal
insensitivity. These type of leaders tend to be unaware of how others think and feel, in
particular about them. They are selfish and do not care about other peoples feelings.
Leaders who posess a trait like this are causing problems for good followers.
The worst example of a leader with this trait would be a teacher. Tenure allows these
people around young children. Many people know how to fake it til they make it.
Reference
Northgate, P. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice.
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.