Psychologists define destructive leadership as selfish behaviour that harms or is intended to harm the leader’s organisation and/or employees.
It is a worldwide, cross-cultural phenomenon that involves deception, coercion, intimidation and other objectionable behaviour.
A study led by University of Bergen scientist Merethe Schanke Aasland found that 83.7 per cent of employees in a European survey reported exposure to some form of destructive leadership. Furthermore, 33.5 per cent of respondents reported experiencing at least one destructive behaviour "quite often" or "very often or nearly always" within the past six months. In other words, destructive leadership is not uncommon.
Four types
Dozens of different forms of destructive leadership have been identified. More usefully, one method of quantifying destructive leadership behaviours classifies them along two dimensions. One is the extent to which they target the organisation as opposed to people; the other is the extent to which the behaviour is high or low in hostility. This creates four broad categories of destructive behaviour.
Organisation-directed behaviours that are high in hostility include acts of sabotage and vandalism – although this category crops up comparatively rarely.
Organisation-directed behaviours that are low in hostility are more common and include theft, embezzlement, breaking the law or company rules and even substance abuse while at work.
Employee-directed behaviours high in hostility include bullying, intimidation and aggression towards employees. This category also includes passive-aggressive behaviour such as deliberately excluding employees or repeatedly reminding them of their past mistakes and failures.
Employee-directed behaviours low in hostility tend to be exploitative and aimed at furthering the leader’s self-interest at the cost of employees’ careers or wellbeing. This category includes taking credit for employees’ achievements, manipulating employees and generally using rather than developing employees.
Demotivator
Unsurprisingly, hundreds of research studies on destructive leadership have found that it adversely affects organisations and employees. Employees exposed to high levels of destructive behaviour typically perform worse in their jobs, experience poorer mental health and feel less committed to their organisations.
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However, researchers led by Art Padilla at North Carolina State University have pointed out that few leaders exhibit only destructive behaviours. A leader whose behaviour is always destructive is easy to spot and remove from the organisation. The majority of leaders engage in both constructive and destructive behaviours. So long as the benefits to the organisation outweigh the harm that is done, there is often insufficient incentive for senior decision-makers to deal with destructive leadership.
Another issue is that not all destructive behaviour is intentional. Psychological scientists led by Susanna Tafv
