Leadership derailment takes place when a leader does not reach the set goals and result in being demoted, transferred, or removed from their position (Boss, 2015). In theory, leadership derailment deals with leaders not reaching their full potential as established by their first outstanding work history. For today’s leaders’ derailment is one of the most crucial challenges owing to the dramatically changeable or transitional atmosphere, such as crisis, globalization, redundancy, rapid technology advancement, stakeholders, and other factors. Leadership derailment has proven to be particularly costly to an organization in terms of both financial and employee costs. Once a leader derails, the company bears the outlay of the lost developmental investment in that leader in addition to the expenses related to own ineffectiveness in that job role (Boss, 2013). The derailment is associated with negative personality traits. This paper seeks to focus on two underlying causes for leadership derailment including leading a team, adaption to change.
Inability to lead and build a team
Building a robust and capable team is vital to business success. In this way, leaders possess the ability to grow, lead and sustain successful teams. A group shares a mutual goal and objective that they strive for collaboratively (Williams et al., 2012). A derailed leader might find a solution at the heart of the problem by leading a team, as team-focused businesses perform efficiently. Therefore, failed leaders cannot lead teams, which can negatively affect productivity, culture and an organization’s bottom line. In a worst-case scenario, individual get fired, even the leaders. As a good example, whereas diligent people are trustworthy, good role models, and hardworking, they can lack the qualities of good representatives or show no interest in an organization’s vision. Iyang (2013) comments that it leads to an inability to build and lead teams. For the most part, a team is the crux of the individual and the businesses. Failure to work together in groups or teams−there is just so much that could to achieved. Leaders fail to build units when they do not understand what a strong team looks like (Iyang, 2013). Besides, leaders fail to lead teams when their whole understanding of how a team function is dependent on a leader-led model only, which the idea that a single person makes all the decisions (Williams et al., 2012). In reality, leadership does not stay the same. Instead, it rotates to the individual with the greatest context that is the one closest to the issue.
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Sejeli & Manson (2014) posit that lacking the ability to build a team and minimal management experience puts a leader at an increased risk of derailment, and it is thereby significant to enhance on these points to prevent derailment. In the same way, many leaders believe that failure to build and lead teams is a crucial concern for their organizations (Sejeli & Mansor, 2015). Inability to lead and develop teams is related to being self-interested, isolated, and lacking group direction and compassion (Sejeli & Mansor, 2015). Leaders can avoid derailment by recognizing that leadership needs a new outlook and new behaviors.
Inability to adapt to change
According to Sejeli & Mansor (2015), change is inevitable, and that adjusting to transition is key to success for corporation and individuals alike. When a change occurs in a business, effective leadership is required for an effective transition. Adaptability implies that an organization can successfully respond to changing situations and environmental forces (Boss, 2018). Leaders need this skill set to deal with decisions within the organizations along with varying character types (Sejeli & Mansor, 2015).
Furthermore, learning involves obtaining information and expertise, which result in an enduring change in behavior (Sejeli & Mansor, 2015). A derailed leader, nevertheless, behaves unbecomingly toward organizations and particularly junior employees, and also they are incapable of adapting to transition. Conceited, hardworking and isolated leaders are ineffective in adjusting or changing their mistakes.
The existing line of studies demonstrates that some derailed leaders fail to make mental transitions from technical manager to general manager whereas others have not entirely adapted to the management culture of the corporation (Sejeli & Mansor, 2015). Significantly, these leaders refuse to learn and fail to employ feedbacks to make necessary alterations to their behaviors.
Regardless of its persistence over time, this a theme that seems to have expanded in meaning and importance to top-level leaders. Overdependence on supervisors or mentors is a crucial derailment factor. Being unable to be open to a new way of working expected by the management causes many managers to derail (Williams et al. 2012). In recent years, however, the leadership seems to be putting a great deal more focus on the significance of being capable of changing or developing in the workplace, culture or organizational transition processes (Iyang, 2013). Even though resistance to accepting change in corporate culture is a significant flaw among some managers, senior leaders are twice likely to derail owing to adjusting to other nation cultures (Sejeli & Mason, 2015). In many cases, when leaders never have the opportunity to develop several perspectives, they often derail.
Leaders must have three essential traits, such as broad-mindedness, adaptability, and flexibility to new concepts. Iyang (2013) comments that leaders who are attempting to improve their behavior or develop new skills should balance their determination between the developmental endeavors themselves and handling of their subordinates’ perceptions about the changes.
Conclusion
In summary, this study has determined the idea of leadership derailment by looking at the inability to lead and build a team, and the failure to adapt to changes. Leadership derailment is still one of the most vital challenges, particularly in the contemporary world, owing to rapidly volatile technologies and work environment, innovation, and skills set. Productivity, culture and the organization’s bottom all take a hit when a leader derails.
References
Boss, J. (2018, May 16). This Study Reveals Why Leaders Derail. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffboss/2018/05/16/this-study-reveals-why-leaders- derail/#630a8ac57295
Iyang, B.J. (2013). Exploring the Concept of Leadership Derailment: Defining New Research Agenda. International Journal of Business and Management , 8(16),78-85.
Sejeli, D.S., & Mansor, N.A. (2015). Leadership Derailment: Does Self-Leadership Matters? International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues ,5, 22-26.
Williams, F.I., Campbell, C., McCartney, W., & Gooding, C. (2012). Leader Derailment in Academe: Does the Training Match the Problem. Journal of Academic Administration in Higher Education , 8(1),43-48.
