How Bad Leaders Get It Wrong
What is an anti-leader?
In an effort to better understand how such bad leadership operates, let’s take a theory of good leadership — transformational leadership — and flip it around. If bad leadership is the opposite of good leadership, then we should be able to take the components of transformational leadership and see how a bad leader does the opposite. (You may want to review Week 6 where we discussed transformational leadership).
So, here goes. The first component of transformational leadership is idealized influence. The good leader is a positive role model and deals fairly with followers. The good leader “walks the talk,” and would never put personal gain over the needs of the followers. The anti-leader does the opposite and demands complete, unquestioning loyalty, and never shares how or why decisions are being made. The anti-leader plays favorites, and rewards blind loyalty with perks. Instead of being proud to lead the group, the anti-leader says, “they don’t pay me enough to deal with the likes of you.”
The second component of transformational leadership is inspirational motivation. The good leader is optimistic and uses a positive, compelling vision to inspire followers and spur them to better performance. The anti-leader tells followers who are faced with budget cuts, for example, “just don’t work so hard; do only what is necessary to get by.” And, the anti-leader’s style is punitive. Nothing kills motivation faster than getting punished for any misstep, and never getting rewarded for positive behavior.
Transformational leaders use intellectual stimulation to spur followers to be creative and “think outside the box.” The anti-leader tells followers to “just do the basics; follow the rules and don’t question my authority or the way things are done.” The anti-leader says that the “most important thing is to complete the required forms,” and not to worry about the quality of customer service. Any employee who questions the status quo (or the leader’s authority) is not only immediately reprimanded, but goes on the anti-leader’s shit list.
The fourth component of transformational leadership is individualized consideration. This is where the leader shows concern for followers, their individual needs and concerns, and works to develop them into better workers and budding leaders. You can imagine that this doesn’t happen at all with the anti-leader. High on narcissism, the anti-leader furthers a personal agenda, at the expense of workers.
For Development. Try this strategy of taking a theory of good leadership and using it to analyze bad leadership, or to look at the times when leaders do the wrong thing or do things wrong.
