Abusive leadership and how to avoid doing it
Keeping control of anxiety is key
Have you ever lost your temper at a subordinate? Abused someone at a meeting but not really understood why?
It’s not easy to be a leader in the 21st century as the job is hugely demanding both emotionally and physically as we all struggle with increasing work demands from clients, customers and staff. Not only that but it is hard to take breaks as we are bombarded with emails, Skype meetings and phone calls 24 hours a day from people around the world who work different office hours.
It’s not surprising therefore that leaders can feel the pressure and sometimes lose their tempers in difficult situations.
Recent research published in Leadership Quarterly by myself and fellow UNSW Australia researcher Michael Collins led to the development of a new model of leadership that shows how some leaders have the right stuff to be able to handle all this stress while others crumble under the pressure and become abusive.
Some chief executives have high attentional capacity and tend not to feel anxious. As a result, they don’t get overwhelmed when faced with a difficult situation. These leaders keep a firm grip on their emotions, are icy calm, and think clearly even when the chips are down. These people don’t succumb to anger, which they know will only alienate staff, narrow attention and lead to bad decisions and outcomes. Instead these leaders can proactively engage in the important task of leading and solution finding. Their staff learn that their good decision making can be relied upon and they know that they will not be victimised and turned into scapegoats by their angry boss.
Leaders low in anxiety and high in self-regulation capacity are more likely to be constructive leaders
On the other hand, there are those leaders who walk into a meeting worried with anxiety and concerns. As the pressure piles on, they focus on the threats and the dangers such that they get overwhelmed by the difficulty of the task ahead. This is when leaders become abusive. Unfortunately, there is a vicious cycle in which attention becomes more narrowed as they focus on the threat which then provides less and less capacity to solve the important issues in a rational and sensible manner. Often all this happens in a very non-conscious way, such that the leader feels that he or she has little control over what is happening. While regret might be felt afterwards, there is unfortunately a big chance the cycle will repeat itself when they’re placed in the same situation.