What's behind the leader who behaves badly at work
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For professionals responsible for a productive, engaged, harmonious workplace, it’s crucial to know what will be disruptive to that environment. Especially when the culprit could likely be a leader in the company.
What do we need to know, and do, about leaders who are regularly behaving badly and harming everyone in their orbit?
Let's get to know these folks, and what may be behind that behavior...
“Abrasive leaders become winners…”
First off, we know that abrasive leaders aren’t lacking in ability. Often it's their technical competence that led to their rise to management. It's this competence that often has management, fellow leaders, and stakeholders choosing to ignore the behavior—even as it continues to poison the workplace.
We also know that great leadership is about emotional intelligence. Dr. Laura Crawshaw, founder of the abrasive leader concept, notes in her interview in Winners Who Become Losers, that competent leaders “successfully maneuver themselves and their teams through the inevitable interpersonal rough patches present in any workplace, keeping emotional distress, and the resulting distraction, to a minimum.”
Abrasive leaders damage working relationships through aggressive or intimidating behavior, and stifle communication through fear of an emotional outburst or worse.
What’s at the core of this behavior? Why do abrasive leaders act in a way that’s so obviously detrimental to themselves and everyone else?
“... who become losers”
Dr. Crawshaw answers: fear. “Through the years, I learned that most abrasive leaders are neither evil nor insane; they are fearful of perceived threats to their competence that could jeopardize their workplace survival…They, like all of us, want to be perceived as competent, but if anything threatens that perception, they experience intense unconscious anxiety and attack the perceived threat.”
She recalls a past client, a CEO, who complained that their senior management team sat silently when pressed for ideas or reactions. When she asked the leader why they thought the team didn’t respond, the answer was: “I don’t know—they’re either lazy or stupid.”
To leaders like this one, it’s inconceivable that the reality could be that no one voiced their ideas for fear of being attacked by this person. In this case, it was confirmed through coworker interviews. The CEO instilled fear in everyone around, couldn’t see the oppressive nature of their workplace attitude, and was blind to its effects on the team’s communication.
Abrasive leaders become losers in these ways (and many more) because their interpersonal incompetence leads to:
An unnerved team that creates more errors, not more productivity.
Coworkers who work around them, not with them.
Relationships that are transactional and brief, instead of deep and lasting.
Negative outcomes in the organization like low morale, higher absenteeism, attrition, and harassment suits.
A bad reputation that will eventually have them on the ropes professionally, fired, passed over, or worse.
A disturbing sense that they’re ineffective with others, no one likes them, they can’t get things done, etc. so ultimately they’re not meeting their own goals and dreams.
In almost every case, it doesn’t have to be this way. You're not helpless, and contrary to common belief, abrasive leaders are not hopeless.
If you're interested in next steps to better understand and deal with bad behavior in your workplace, here are three options I can offer:
Take our Abrasive Leader Diagnostic to help diagnose them, so you have the foundation to address the issue and help them become true winners.
Read this whitepaper: The Abrasive Leader.
Schedule a complimentary conversation with me right here.
When we join a company, partnership or team, our expectation is that everyone involved will exhibit professional behavior toward us and each other. Instead, it’s highly possible that we may become one of the more than 60 million adults in the United States who are affected in some way by bullying behavior at work.
What kind of behaviors are we talking about? Our definition is any interpersonal behavior that causes emotional distress in others sufficient enough to impede their productivity or disrupt organizational functioning. It isn’t just a personality conflict — it’s a chronic pattern of disrespectful behavior.