Dark traits are counterproductive behaviors that can spell disaster for those in leadership positions. Unsuccessful leaders may not realize that their very personalities can be interfering with their propensity for working in teams. According to our lessons, these dark side personality traits include; argumentative, interpersonal insensitivity, narcissism, fear of failure, perfectionism, and impulsivity, (PSU WC, 2020, p. 3). Every person has a capacity for these dark side traits in certain amounts. Our lessons also tell us that these traits are not usually discovered during the interview process, meaning that they become more apparent after the individual has been in their position for some time already, (PSU WC, 2020, p. 4). Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic with the Harvard Business review has found some research proving that there is possibly a way to detect leadership incompetence in people, (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2020, p. 8). Successful leadership is more important now than ever due to the many modern problems business and the world face today, it is important to know how those traits affect leadership, how testing during the interview process could help ensure competent leadership, and how best to implement that testing.
Different traits affect leadership in many different ways. One important way that they can affect a leader is that their followers are not as dedicated to the end goal and don’t work as hard to achieve it, (PSU WC, 2020, p. 1). When followers don’t have a competent leader, the leader will not be as successful in guiding their team towards their goals, and that affects the business. If the business sees that a leader isn’t progressing, they may take actions that affect them all, such as having more rigid rules, passing out reprimands, or even terminating positions. Our lesson says that these dark traits cant really be measured in interviews (PSU WC, 2020, p. 4), but there has been some research that argues to the contrary.
Testing during the interview process can help businesses find more competent leaders. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, “For some time now, we have had at our disposal scientifically valid assessments to predict and avoid managerial and leadership incompetence,” (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2020, p. 8). This is just the thing that businesses need to better evaluate the effectiveness of their candidates. Instead of focusing solely on the traits they want, they need to find out of applicants have those dark traits which would hinder progress. This relates to our text when it says that looking for those traits may not help in certain situations, and that those traits are not necessarily based on reliable research any way, (Northouse, 2016, p. 41). Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic discuses implementing this testing, but I think that each business should find the best way of doing so for themselves.
Businesses should find a way that best works for them to implement this testing because what works for one may not work for all. Our text tells us that training and developing specific traits isn’t a useful practice because traits are generally set and aren’t very likely to be changed, (Northouse, 2016, p. 41). This relates to our lesson because the dark traits tend to become more apparent after the individual has been a leader for a while, (PSU WC, 2020, p. 4). Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic says that the process of evaluating leadership competence involves finding out how arrogant they are because those who are not skilled tend to rate themselves highly, (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2020, p. 3). This mean that the interviewer should educate themselves on how to identify arrogance. One way this could be done by asking the interviewee to rate themselves and then following up with previous employers to see any discrepancies.
Team performance is a major aspect of a business’s success; therefore, it is vitally important to know how traits affect leadership, how testing could help ensure competent leadership, and how to implement that testing before incompetence becomes a problem. Not all leaders are equipped with the right skills for every situation; but, having the wrong skills for every situation is even worse. Testing for higher levels of arrogance in potential candidates during the interview process can help businesses select more competent leaders. Those with dark side traits may be oblivious to their own pitfalls, but employers don’t have to be.
References
Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2020, March 11). How to Spot an Incompetent Leader. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2020/03/how-to-spot-an-incompetent-leader
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Seventh Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
PSU WC. (2020). The Dark Side of Personality. Retrieved from Penn State University World Campus: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2015147/modules/items/29089117
Setena Brown says
The people are the heartbeat of the company. The formal leaders and their followers are equally important. Leadership is “the process of influencing an organized group towards accomplishing goals” Hughes, Ginnett, and Curphy (2019). Leadership is a process and leaders and follower carry this process out. Leaders provide the visions and guidance to the follows. Leaders also may not want to share power resulting in information silos in organizations. These are dark aspects that effect the productivity and morale in the workplace. Dark traits in subordinate team members negatively impact progress. Dark traits in leaders several negatively impact the progress of the company on a wider scale.
The concept that leadership is not limited to the identified leader. People operate in the capacity of leader and follower. Someone may have expertise that allows them to take the lead. They both assume that the superior leader may allow that subject matter expert to lead on certain initiatives even though the team member has no official decision making power. In the event that a subject matter expert has ulterior motives, they can derail performance. Subject matter experts may not act in the best interest of the organization.
Team members are responsible for working with various departments to produce deliverables. If their behavior and attitudes are not aligned with the company’s objectives, they negatively impact the morale as well. “Not only does the leader impact followers, but followers also impact the leader.” Hughes, Ginnett, and Curphy (2019) Followers need to be agile as needs change. If they are apprehensive or lack the capacity to pivot, the productivity will suffer.
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Leading primarily with coercion power is a dark leadership aspect as well that negatively impacts employee morale as well. Referent power is much more effective in building morale. It will increase intrinsic motivation, which is better for the bottom line. The leader, followers, and situation shows how leadership has so many components that impact one another holistically Hughes, Ginnett, and Curphy (2019).
References
Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., & Curphy, G. J. (2019). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience (9th ed.). New York, NY: Mc Graw Hill Education
ejm187 says
Some of the dark-side traits can easily hide under the five [more preferred] personality traits of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, specifically, narcissism, which has proven to be significantly related to higher extraversion scores (Northouse, 2016; PSU WC, 2020, L. 2). Additionally, it’s reasonable to think that some of the other personality traits such as self-confidence, dominance, and achievement orientation would be preferred for a leader, but these traits can also be a good cloak for narcissism.
For good or bad, leader traits are thought to be fairly stable and can “foster a consistent pattern of leadership performance across a variety of group and organizational situations” (Muchinsky & Culbertson, 2016, p. 396). Without doubt, the six dark-side traits are not precluded from influencing leadership performance.
Dark-side traits are not always evident in interviews so it would be wise to take a multiple hurdles approach during the interview process (PSU WC, 2020, L. 2). Too much is at stake for both the organization and the employees; the right leader has to be in place. The interview process should include some credible personality assessments such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator which looks at a person’s interests, reactions, values, motivations, and skills (The Myers-Briggs Foundation, 2020).
Self-serving leadership is truly cancerous for an organization and it will become obvious to within a relatively short period of time. As soon as followers realize that their leader is not worried about the greater good, they will start to make decisions that are not in the best interest of the company as well. For example, The Gallup Organization conducted a study that estimated that there are “22 million actively disengaged employees costing the American economy as much as $350 billion dollars per year in lost productivity including absenteeism, illness, and other problems that result when employees are unhappy at work” (Blankenship, 2014, para. 3). An easy way to spot dark-side leaders is to look for turnover. People will push hard to get away from a bad leader, and bad leaders have resumes with a lot of short stints and lots of excuses as to why previous employment didn’t last.
During an interview, ask questions that relate to the person’s values and morals, not just their expertise in growing sales or achieving goals. It would be best to ask a potential leader for examples of how they’ve worked closely with past subordinates and to describe some of the specific things they’ve done to help others be successful in their roles.
References:
Blankenship, M. (2014). The high cost of low morale by Nicole Fink. Retrieved from https://go.roberts.edu/bid/183778/The-High-Cost-of-Low-Morale-by-Nicole-Fink
Muchinsky, P.M. & Culbertson, S.S. (2016). Psychology applied to work: An introduction to industrial and organizational psychology. (7th ed). Summerfield, NC: Hypergraphic Press.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2020). PSYCH 485 Lesson 2: Trait Approach. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2015147/modules/items/29089120
The Myers-Briggs Foundation. (2020). MBTI basics. Retrieved from https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/