دانلود رایگان ترجمه مقاله علل و پیامدهای رهبری مخرب (نشریه الزویر 2015)

رهبری مخرب: علل، پیامدها و اقدامات متقابل

Destructive leadership: Causes, consequences and countermeasures

In 2010, David Matsuda, an anthropology professor, was asked to study why almost 30 U.S. soldiers in Iraq had committed or attempted suicide in the past year. His investigation showed that while those soldiers often had major problems in their personal lives, the victims also had in common at least one leader (sometimes a couple of leaders) who made their lives hell. While the evidence did notshow thatthe soldiers’leaders directly caused them to commit or attempt suicide, it did support the notion that the leaders who had made their lives hell had helped to push them over the brink. It was this finding that forced the U.S. military to confront the problem of ‘‘toxic’’ leadership in the army.

As a first stage in attempting to fix the problem, the military in 2012 published their definition of toxic leadership:

Toxic leadership is a combination of self-centered attitudes, motivations, and behaviors that have adverse effects on subordinates, the organization, and mission performance. This leader lacks concern for others and the climate of the organization, which leads to shortand long-term negative effects. The toxic leader operates with an inflated sense of self-worth and from acute selfinterest. Toxic leaders consistently use dysfunctional behaviors to deceive, intimidate, coerce, or unfairly punish others to get what they want for themselves. The negative leader completesshort-term requirements by operating at the bottom of the continuum of commitment, where followers respond to the positional power of their leader to fulfill requests. This may achieve resultsin the short term, but ignores the other leader competency categories of leads and develops. Prolonged use of negative leadership to influence followers undermines the followers’ will, initiative, and potential and destroys unit morale.

Variousstudies estimate thatthe number oftoxic leadersin the army ranges from 10% to 30%. While the focus is initially (and deservedly) on the individual leaders labeled as toxic, attention has also been paid to the mindset of followers (i.e., military subordinates) and the prevailing climate/environment in the military. The military is viewed as an organization where pride, respect and loyalty are of paramount importance. In such an environment, junior officers may be loath to publically identify poor behavior by their superiors. In addition, several recent military conflicts and loss of senior personnelto private security companies had resulted in relatively inexperienced personnel being promoted more rapidly than would otherwise have been the case. The case oftoxic leadership in the army seems a classic triangle of destructive leaders, susceptible followers and a conducive environment.

In response to this situation, the military identified a small number of officers it considered were toxic and removed them from their jobs. In addition, the army implemented a small pilot program of 360-degree evaluations so that subordinates could anonymously and truthfully evaluate their superiors without fear of retribution. Such measures are believed to be showing promise, but many believe there is still some way to go.