McGraw-Hill/Irwin
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Copyright © 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Chapter
15
The Dark Side of
Leadership
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"If you put on a blindfold and threw a
dart at a map of the world, then there
is a 70 percent chance that whatever
country the dart lands on is run by
some form of dictatorship.”
RT Hogan,
Hogan Assessment Systems
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Introduction
• Bad leadership: individuals who are effective at
building teams and getting results through others,
but who obtain results that are morally or ethically
challenged.
• Managerial incompetence: a person’s inability to
build teams or get results through others.
• Managerial derailment: describes the common
reasons why people in positions of authority have
difficulties building teams or getting results
through others.
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Managerial Incompetence
Research shows that 50-75% of managers are
incompetent. Yet, organizations and countries survive.
Some facts that illustrate this:
• Most countries are run by some form of dictatorship.
• Many leaders of democratic countries are perceived as
being unable to build teams or get results..
• 1,132 CEO’s departured in the first nine months of 2008, up
from 700 per year from 2002 to 2004.
• Employee satisfaction surveys show over 75% of
respondents indicate that their immediate boss is the most
stressful part of their job.
• Over 70% of M&A fail to yield projected improvements in
profitability and synergies
• A study reported that only 30% of businesses had “healthy
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and respectful” work climates.
Managerial Incompetence Grid
Figure 15.1: The Two Dimensions of Managerial Incompetence
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Types of managers
• Competent managers: good at building teams
and getting results through others.
• Results-only managers: good at achieving
results, but tend to treat followers so poorly that
results tend to be short-lived.
• Cheerleaders: people in positions of authority
who are people centered and make a point of
getting along with everyone.
• In-name-only managers: may not be complete
failures at building teams and getting results,
but they could be a lot better at both.
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Managerial Derailment
Research in the area of managerial
derailment identified five derailment
patterns:
• Failure to meet business objectives
• An inability to build and lead a team
• An inability to build relationships with
coworkers
• Inability to adapt to new bosses, businesses,
cultures, or structures
• Inadequate preparation for promotion.
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Alternative Conceptualizations of
Leadership Behavior
• Alternative conceptualizations are concerned
with:
– Identifying key leadership behavior.
– Determining if these behaviors have positive
relationships with leadership success.
– Developing those behaviors related to leadership
success.
• Leadership Grid: Profiles leader behavior on
two dimensions:
– Concern for people
– Concern for production
• The most effective leaders are said to have high
concern for both people and for production.
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Root causes of managerial
incompetence and derailment
Figure 15.2: The Root Causes of Managerial Derailment and the
Leader–Follower– Situation Mode
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Root causes of managerial
incompetence and derailment
Table15.2: Bad Leadership, Managerial Incompetence, Managerial
Derailment, and Root Causes
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Situational and Follower Factors in
Managerial Derailment
Factors that can interfere with a person’s ability
to be seen as a competent manager include:
• New competitive threats, globalization, technology,
changing customer, preferences, unreliable suppliers,
new government regulations, unfavorable media
coverage, natural disasters, and wars.
• Mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, bankruptcies, new
strategies, reorganizations, and incidents of
workplace violence or environmental disasters.
• New bosses, peers, direct reports; disengaged or
disgruntled employees; disruptive worker cliques; and
strikes or dysfunctional turnover.
• New jobs, responsibilities, or projects.
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Two points about overwhelming
situational and follower factors
• The manager can control his or her reactions to
overwhelming factors.
• Episodic versus chronic incompetence.
– Episodic managerial incompetence is when people in
positions of authority face extremely tough situational or
follower events that temporarily interfere with their ability
to build teams and get results.
– Chronic managerial incompetence is when taxing
situational or follower events permanently disrupt a
person’s ability to build teams or get results.
• All competent managers experience occasional
episodic managerial incompetence; the trick is to
limit the frequency and duration of these
occurrences.
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Other issues involved in managerial
incompetence
• Organizational Fit - the degree of agreement between
personal and organizational values and beliefs
• Situational Awareness - refers to a pilot’s ability to be
cognizant of and accurately assess risks before, during,
and after a flight
• Self-awareness – refers to being aware of their own
strengths and shortcomings. Leaders often find ways to
either manage or staff around their personal knowledge
and skill gaps.
• Subject matter expertise - the relevant knowledge or
experience a person can leverage to solve a problem.
• Team-building Know-how - the degree to which a
leader knows the steps and processes needed to build
high performing teams.
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Dark-Side Personality Traits
Table15.3: Dark-Side Personality Traits
Source: Hogan Assessment Systems, The Hogan Development Survey (Tulsa, OK: 2002).
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