Destructive Leadership: Factors, Consequences, and Prevention

This essay critically analyzes the concept of destructive leadership, exploring its definition, contributing factors, and consequences. It delves into the characteristics of destructive leaders, such as arrogance, autocracy, and incompetence, and examines their impact on employees, organizations, and society. The essay discusses how destructive leadership can lead to negative attitudes, high turnover rates, and a toxic organizational culture. Furthermore, it provides practical strategies for preventing destructive leadership, including early-career management training, building trust, surveying potential leaders, providing feedback, and monitoring leader performance. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of establishing a strong balance of board leadership to mitigate the effects of destructive behavior.

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DESTRUCTIVE LEADERSHIP
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12/16/2019

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One of the main terms related to global trends is “Disruption”. When talking about
disruption, it can be simply referred to as those who are in action and which can also cause a
major breakdown. The term is basically used to give meaning to something which has
experienced a major decisive change. One of the more correct definitions of this term is
linked with the changing of the way people think or the way in which things are done
(Krasikova, Green, and LeBreton, 2013).
One of the most noteworthy examples of disruption in the progress of technology, since these
kinds of changes helps in determining the disappearance of the services and the products as a
result of a change in the mind-set over time.
A destructive leader is someone who always looks towards better solutions and the ways to
establish new procedures and wants to make an impact on the business as a whole. Without
worrying regarding shaking the things up or altering the paths in order to obtain the results
necessary.
Destructive leaders include their members of the team in the process, maintaining
transparency and allowing for more convenient making the decision. The kind of leaders will
not have great difficulties in reporting what they want, why and when. One of the most
important things is that they take part in the required actions for this to happen
One of the most distinctive factors of this style is that the leaders expect the unexpected and
thrive with the levels that are the highest of uncertainty. Being ideal for guiding the tea and
transmitting trust and calm. One of the most famous destructive leaders who is also well
known for the vision and creativity was Steve Jobs, who is also responsible for the success of
the organization Apple and is also known for being the first one to voice criticism, which was
a practice that he defended based on the results of his team (Thoroughgood, Sawyer, Padilla,
and Lunsford, 2018)

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There are mainly 6 characteristics of disruptive leadership. The first one is Arrogant, these
disruptive leaders are very arrogant and they always believe that they are always correct and
they also want other people to accept the truth. They do not extend any help to the other
people and they hate it when people around them try to correct them on anything.
The next one is autocratic, a destructive leader does not want any opinion, they only listen to
themselves and they also expect others to follow their opinion without questioning them.
The next comes irritable; this is not a very surprising characteristic. These leaders come out
to be highly irritable; they do not want anyone to bother them for anything. As they are not
open to new ideas from anybody else, they loathe being asked queries and evade it as much
as conceivable.
The next one is the lack of confidence, these kinds of leaders have no faith and no
confidence on them and they most of the time find it very difficult to trust the members of the
team and due to this lack of confidence, the difficult issues and challenges in the organization
are always ignored by such leaders.
The next one is incompetent, a destructive leader also has a feeling that they are the best and
that they are incompetent and hence they struggle while making common decisions or while
doing easy tasks. The sense of importance for them only comes while criticizing the other
people and by making others feel that they are less (Song, Qian, Wang, Yang, and Zhai,
2017).
Destructive leadership has various consequences. The influence of destructive leaders on the
employees and the persons who effort for them covers various varieties of consequences.
On an individual level, the management which is destructive is probable to have various
numbers of bad penalties; the assistants have various kinds of negative attitudes towards the

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leader. Mostly the employees in such situations leave the company and the overall
performance of the employees and well-being of the employees are affected.
Destructive leadership behaviors also have important concerns for administrations as a whole
and donate to a diversity of human resource fatalities. The attendance of destructive leaders
within a society can harmfully disturb the administration’s capability to entice and employee
high potential staffs (Schyns, and Schilling, 2013).
Destructive leaders might also decrease the aptitude of an association to grow the
presentation possible of its workers once hired. As previously decorated, destructive
leadership can outcome in high-income rates, with the supplementary prices of new
recruitment. This weather reduces worker enactment as those workers who endure beginning
to devote their period job shooting and/or being inattentive from work. Its widest influence
may be that destructive leadership frequently consequences in a poisonous organizational
culture with such toxic philosophies then increasing the probability of more destructive
leaders.
The Toxic philosophies like these are frequently considered by a lack of trust amongst
colleagues. In adding, augmented favoritism becomes the norm (Einarsen, Aasland, and
Skogstad, 2007).
The last following are some of the ways to prevent destructive leadership in an organization.
The first method is to provide early-career management training. The teams should make sure
that the first line managers are trained in the main skills of interpersonal communication,
receiving and giving feedback, motivating the other people and having tough conversations.
It is very important v for the early leaders to learn as to when and how to flex their style of
leadership in order to suit the situations. Apart from this, they should also learn to value the

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contribution of the team, they manage this thing mostly by play and reward and not by
finding out the issues and the flaws in other people.
The second thing is to develop the trust at all levels of the organization, A program of
development should be based on trust-building- with each other and with the customers and
they can be run at all the levels and for each and every staff. This can also help to champion
the value of integrity, compassion and competence in the business (Padilla, Hogan, and
Kaiser, 2007)
The next thing is to Survey authority up-and-comers successfully, the companies can use
character, qualities, and respectability and inspiration evaluations to increase the total image
of your administration competitors before they're delegated.
The next way is to give criticism. Leaders at all levels can profit by execution input that
features their conduct as well as shows whether it adjusts to their own qualities. Outfitting
directors with more significant levels of passionate knowledge causes them to show others
how it’s done and it encourages conduct change. At the point when the conduct is estimated,
individuals are progressively aware of what they do, what others do and what should be done,
to improve viability (Aasland, Skogstad, Notelaers, Nielsen, Einarsen, 2010).
Further, Screen the presentation of Leaders. In the event that any potential indications of a
crash or any proof of harmful conduct happen, check it from the beginning. Good example
great conduct. Leaders have a duty to establish the pace for those underneath them. Exhibit
instances of positive initiative conduct in your association.
The last one is to hold a solid equalization of Board initiative. Board individuals ought to be
delegated who have the boldness to challenge any cases of lethal conduct in the CEO or other
ranking directors.

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References
Aasland, M.S., Skogstad, A., Notelaers, G., Nielsen, M.B. and Einarsen, S., 2010. The
prevalence of destructive leadership behavior. British Journal of Management, 21(2), pp.438-
452.
Einarsen, S., Aasland, M.S. and Skogstad, A., 2007. Destructive leadership behavior: A
definition and conceptual model. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(3), pp.207-216.
Krasikova, D.V., Green, S.G. and LeBreton, J.M., 2013. Destructive leadership: A theoretical
review, integration, and future research agenda. Journal of Management, 39(5), pp.1308-
1338.
Padilla, A., Hogan, R. and Kaiser, R.B., 2007. The toxic triangle: Destructive leaders,
susceptible followers, and conducive environments. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(3), pp.176-
194.
Schyns, B. and Schilling, J., 2013. How bad are the effects of bad leaders? A meta-analysis of
destructive leadership and its outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), pp.138-158.
Song, B., Qian, J., Wang, B., Yang, M. and Zhai, A., 2017. Are you hiding from your boss?
Leader's destructive personality and employee silence. Social Behavior and Personality: an
International Journal, 45(7), pp.1167-1174.
Thoroughgood, C.N., Sawyer, K.B., Padilla, A. and Lunsford, L., 2018. Destructive
leadership: A critique of leader-centric perspectives and toward a more holistic definition.
Journal of Business Ethics, 151(3), pp.627-649.