According to the article “The dark side of leadership” by Conger (1990), published in Organizational dynamics Journal, a leader one is expected to act in a certain manner so as to portray an image of having things under control. So many a times whether through our role models or throughout history has leadership been recorded and in most of these recorded instances have we been given what such people did in a positive manner. From the likes of Nelson Mandela to Richard Branson to George W. Bush we have been told of how great these personalities were in one way or another. But what is never mentioned is the fact that in some instances there was a pinch of selfishness for self-gain when it came to serving their respective offices. As such we will delve into the negative side of leadership that we are never told.
Conger further argues that a leader’s worst fear is to be adjudged to be a failure or have a reputation of having failed in whichever task he was supposed to oversee. In such circumstances having that kind of pressure bestowed upon you is at times too much to the extent one will embark on micromanagement in that for any bit of mistake or lapse in judgment of his subordinated it becomes a reason to criticize or even layoff whoever is responsible thus in the end one tends to create enemies which also impacts the organization in a negative way (1990).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Another negative side is the act of manipulation to gain the upper-hand in a certain situation, (Blase, & Blase, 2004) . Some leaders have gone to the extent of using blackmail as a tool to achieve results which tends to demoralize the parties involved. The highest perpetrator of this is the lack of trust in the employees they manage. When one second guesses their every decision, it implies they are not confident. Therefore manipulation becomes easy. People should, therefore, learn to trust themselves first. Alternatively, the leaders use their powers abusively. Since they do not want to look bad to those they report to, they prefer having a subordinate employee take the fault for them. As they are in a high position, it becomes easy for them to make the subordinates look bad in the eyes of higher authority.
Additionally, according to Liu, Liao & Loi (2012), a nother negative trait is arrogance. Most leaders tend to act arrogantly and justify their actions using their position. Arrogant people believe they have everything figured out, no need to learn more and therefore think that every decision they make is correct and should be affected. Arrogance creates a negative relationship between the leader and his followers. In most cases, it may lead to hatred and lower productivity in the followers. Arrogance is often mistaken for confidence. Confident leaders cultivate and inspire their followers instead of demoralizing them. Confidence leaders are not afraid to take into account the ideas of their followers or corrections.
However, Conger concludes that leaders also face their own grievances such as pressure from their own bosses. Being a leader entails making sure every operation in an organization runs smoothly. Failure to do this means many things in an organization will go down. Besides the prestige that comes with the title, there are a lot of pressures involved. Maintaining a good name is not easy. Making sure the organization runs smoothly translates to investing a lot of time in it, something that most people do not understand, Leading people is therefore proven to be a very hard task (1990).
References
Blase, J., & Blase, J. (2004). The Dark Side of Leadership. Educational Management , 1 (5), 208.
Conger, J. A. (1990). The dark side of leadership. Organizational Dynamics , 19 (2), 44-55.
Liu, D., Liao, H., & Loi, R. (2012). The dark side of leadership: A three-level investigation of the cascading effect of abusive supervision on employee creativity. Academy of Management Journal , 55 (5), 1187-1212.
