Destructive and abusive leadership
Systematic, repeated behaviour by a leader that undermines the organisation, the wellbeing of subordinates or both. Abusive supervision is sustained hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviour short of physical contact: ridicule, public put-downs, silent treatment, taking credit. Passive, absent (laissez-faire) leadership also counts, and is as damaging as it is common.
What drives it
For the leader it discharges frustration, asserts dominance and secures compliance, often downward displacement of pressure from above. For the target it produces fear, self-doubt and silence, which is why it can run for years.
How it shows
Work
In a leader: public humiliation dressed as high standards (“I just don’t tolerate mediocrity”), unpredictable rage, credit taken and blame passed down, kissing up and kicking down, or simply never being available when a decision is needed. In a team: high turnover under one manager, people rehearsing before talking to the boss, gallows jokes, an exit-interview pattern no one acts on, and colleagues copying the abuse downward. Senior people often see a different person from the one subordinates see. As the leader: ask whether the people below your direct reports would describe your top team the way you would, and whether a high performer is being protected because of results.
Relationships
Abusive leaders are often charming outside the hierarchy. In family businesses the abuse may come from a parent and be excused as ‘how he is’, with staff caught in the middle. Targets often bring it home as irritability, insomnia and taking it out on someone weaker.
Self
As a target: dread before one particular person’s meetings, replaying their remarks at night, blaming yourself. As a leader: enjoying the effect of your anger, or noticing that people stop talking when you walk in and telling yourself it is respect.
What tells it apart
Theory X and Theory Y: A Theory X manager controls tightly but impersonally and consistently; an abusive supervisor targets particular people, attacks dignity, and is erratic.
Power and disinhibition: Power disinhibition is a general loosening of restraint in anyone given power, such as interrupting or acting on impulse; abusive supervision is sustained hostility aimed at subordinates.
Coercive control: Coercive control is a pattern of domination in intimate relationships that isolates the person from support; abusive supervision happens inside a formal hierarchy, and the target still has a life and allies outside it.
A test
Talk to people two levels below the leader and to those who have left; consistent stories of fear, humiliation or absence, regardless of results, confirm it.
Questions to carry
- What do people two levels down and those who have left say about working under this leader?
- When I work under someone like this, what do I notice in my body, and who could I tell?
How strong the research is
strong
Where it comes from
Blake Ashforth, 1994 (petty tyranny); Bennett Tepper, 2000 (abusive supervision); Ståle Einarsen, Merethe Aasland and Anders Skogstad, 2007 (destructive leadership model)
Sources
- Robert Hogan, Personality and the Fate of Organizations (2007)