1
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
What a Leader Is Not
Chardae Y. Chaney
BMAL 501, Liberty University
Author Note
Chardae Chaney
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Chardae Y. Chaney
Email: cchaney16@liberty.edu
2
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
Abstract
The role of a leader is important, and it is the makeup of the leader that constitutes the
whether the leader is positive or negative. When focusing on the leadership style and personality
traits, we noticed that negative leaders tend to operate with similar traits as a narcissistic. These
traits do promote self-interest, bullying, and lying to fueling their narcissistic personality.
However, because of these traits and using a power of coercion of force, the negative narcissistic
leader begins to affect the followership and the organization in ways that are detrimental to the
team, the followers as individuals, and the organization. Functioning at the rate and in this work-
environment creates a workplace of distrust, stress, and lack of motivation for the followers. In
order to implement change creating a positive work environment, the leader must focus on
emotional intelligence in order to bring about accountability to one’s self. With accountability the
once narcissistic leader uses emotional intelligence to bring self-awareness so that possible
training and further development can take place within the leader and influence their leadership
style and personality traits to positively bring change to the organization.
Keywords: Narcissist, emotional intelligence, traits, and followership.
3
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
What A Leader Is Not
In leadership, there are traits and styles that creates the makeup of the person who is
leading and sometimes those traits and styles are negative. Certain traits narcissism, can include
being manipulative, bullying, self-serving and deceitful. These particular traits can influence ones
work patterns and decision making while on the job. Such work patterns damage working
relationships and are potentially destructive to the organizations, particularly in leaders (Holland,
2019). Narcissism is just one negative characteristic or trait that describes a leader, but there are
so many other traits that are associated with negative leadership. These combined traits are not
just from negative personality traits, but leadership styles as well. Some scholars believe that the
nature of the leaded will be present so if their dishonest, or greedy, to name a few, these traits can
affect organization and the followership yielding negative outcomes for the organization. A
deeper analysis to understanding the traits and leadership styles, how the leadership style is
influencing the follower, and the outcome will allow help to identity deficiencies to bring about
improvement to the leader. Ultimately, these attributes of the leader will affect the outcome of the
staff and success or failure of the organization.
Overview Negative Leadership Traits
According to (Satterle, 2018), leadership is the ability to influence others and is
dependent upon whether the leader possesses that which followers seek. Poor leadership styles
can be associated with narcissism. There are other traits, but a narcissistic leader can be
dangerous to the followers, themselves, and the organization. These traits could be considered a
form of abuse: bullying, lying, dishonesty, greed, and other negative personality traits help induce
4
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
the notion of a narcissistic leader. But one doesn’t need to be a narcissist to operate within in
these traits, however the influence of self-interest would corrupt such a leader.
Bullying
Workplace bullying can be detrimental to an organization and those followers who have
suffered from this deceptive leadership trait. About 75% of workplace bullying are perpetrated
by supervisors against subordinates (Ambrose and Mitchell 2007; Tepper 2007; Jiang, W., Gu, Q.,
& Thomas Li-Ping Tang, 2019). This suggests that only 25% of subordinates were not subjected
or were not affected in such harsh working environments. Bullying behavior has a negative
emotional influence on victims, lowers their work fulfillment and increases their intention to
leave the organization (Coetzee & van Dyk, 2018). Leaders that use legitimate power or coercive
power to dominate their followers can operate as a bully without knowing. The leader needs to be
open to feedback or utilizing emotional intelligence while leading others. Without desire or
cognitive dissonances to change their behavior, the leader will continue to bully their
subordinates and they will continue to desire to leave their current organization because of
negative leadership.
Self-Interest
Self-interest is part of human nature, and it’s no different with organizational leaders who
thrive on the adoration of employees, the prestige and power of their position, and the belief that
no one else can lead better than they can (Santora & Bozer. 2018, p) Self-interest initiates
leadership to hurt the organization and facilitates personal agenda beyond the vision and the
mission of the organization. Scholars have repeatedly conveyed over the years, that a great leader
supports the vision and mission of their organizations, while developing those were chosen to
5
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
operate under the leader’s span of control. Self-interest can be shown through the traits of greed,
pride, dishonesty, and even negative behaviors and attitudes. When a leader’s psychological
contract is warped with self-interest, it causes the follower’s behaviors and attitudes to reflect that
of the leader. Personal and hidden agendas are pursued, political coalitions are formed, false
impressions are made, and people end up working against rather than with each other and use
influential tactics to get what they desire (Kinicki & Fugate. 2019). However, when this behavior
is channeled in the right direction, the leader can persuade and motive their followers to reach the
vision and mission of the organization and remove self-interest.
Lying
Both bullying and self-interest are entangled with lying and these three are all traits of a
narcissistic leader. Using the power of coercion to manipulate followers to achieve one’s own
agenda is flawed and yet, many leaders use this power. Even those who use their charm or
charisma to influence followers or others is leading in deception. On the one hand, people
generally dislike being lied to and are keen to interrogate why liars lie; on the other hand, people
may engage in lying behavior if they believe it is necessary and worthy to do so (Celse & Chang,
2019). Ethically and morally however, lying is not a positive characteristic of a leader and a great
leader is one who is honest. Leaders who normalize lying behavior are only operating in self-
interest and in the best interest of the organization. Bullying, self-interest, and lying are traits that
dramatically affect the leadership style, the followership, and the organization as a whole.
Negative Leadership Styles
The personality of the leader can affect the style of leadership positively or negatively, but
when negative this style can be perceived as abuse. Organizations tend to focus on transactional
6
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
leadership and transformational leadership styles, but these styles work hand in hand with
managerial decision styles such as autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire. Transformational and
transactional leaders can create conditions that make bullying at work less frequent but laissez-
faire leadership may cause conflict that can result in bullying (Dussault & Frenette. 2015). A
study found that that subordinates whose managers used democratic decisions styles had more
positive attitudes; however, the autocratic decision style resulted in subordinates having
somewhat higher performance level (Satterle. 2018). In other words, if the attitude or personality
of the leader is negative, any style of leadership can be corrupted by poor behavior of the leader.
Abuse of Power
There are many forms of power used in leadership and when abused power is combined
with a negative personality, the work environment becomes toxic. Leaders who use the coercive
power manipulate and force has to power to influence their followers and to mimic their behavior.
While stating the reasons for the high correlation argued that destructive leaders might be seen as
role models for their followers, conveying the message that displaying harmful behavior in the
workplace is inappropriate (Malik, et al., 2020). Gaining the trust of followers is important, but
the wrong type of leader who uses manipulative tactics and force to gain the trust breeds toxicity
and trust can never really be established.
Referencing coping frameworks of both Yagil et al. and Skinner et al., commonly
reported direct communication/problem
‐
solving coping strategies included the following:
assertively challenging or confronting the leader (n = 17; 22%): ‘Tried to name poor behaviors if I
actually witnessed them’; formal complaint (n = 11; 14%) and documenting incidents (n = 9;
12%): ‘I raised the issues as a grievance through a formal process’ (Webster, et al., (2016).
7
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
Followership Affected
Leaders cannot lead, if there is no one to follow. If a leader has access to followers, the
follower will either respond positively or negatively based the operation of the leader.
Organizations succeed or fail on the basis of how well their leaders lead, but also on the basis of
how well their followers follow (Satterle, 2018). Negative leadership has the ability to impute
stress, create an atmosphere of distrust, and cause mental and emotional stress. Taken together,
we argue that sustained exposure to abusive supervision (work event) is likely to induce
subordinates’ feelings of violation (emotional reaction), which subsequently triggers their
malevolent creativity (behavioral reaction) (Malik, et al., 2020). Organization’s suffer when the
employees suffer abuse from the leadership and the vision and mission of the organization is
affected. Followers should feel empowered and motivated to work because without followers
there is no organization.
Lack of Motivation
Motivating followers is vital for organizational productivity and negative leaders struggle
with motivating their followers because they are self-seeking, greedy, and liars as stated
previously in the paper. Abusive supervision undermines not only leader’s effectiveness but also
followers’ attitudes and behaviors (Han et al. 2015; Jiang & Thomas, 2019). When the attitudes
and behaviors are affected, the outcomes such as task performance, turnover ratio, and the
follower’s well-being suffer. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs displays that followers’ basic needs
should be met in order to reach the panicle of self-actualization. Without the support and
motivation of the leader, a follower may not be able to reach self-actualization under the negative
leadership.
8
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
Stress and Trust
Submitting under negative/abusive leadership effects followers negatively which produces
stressful working environments and cause distrust in the working relationship.
A variety of distressing consequences were reported as negatively impacting on
respondents’ well‐being, including physical health issues, emotional harm and
psychological distress (refer to Table 1). Psychological effects included self
‐
doubt (n = 22; 29%): ‘I lost confidence in myself’; feeling highly stressed (n = 17; 22%):
‘…eventually I was unable to function in the role … from the stress’;
and anxious (n = 13; 17%) and depressed (n = 10; 13%): ‘anxiety, loss of professional
and personal esteem…’ Emotional effects included mistrust (n = 17; 22%) (Webster, et
al., (2016).
Narcissistic or abusive leadership can impose and use coercive power towards the
employees, causing them to feel under pressure or stress. Not to mention, the manipulating factors
to force followers to get their work done, brings pressure to the follower and as stated above, this
pressure causes emotional harm or mistrust. A follower needs to be able to trust that the leader
has the organization in mind, not self-serving interest because it takes a toll on those who have to
produce the outcomes desired. Employees’ trust in managers is associated with job satisfaction,
organizational commitment, intention to stay, and job performance (Dirks and Ferrin,
2002, Nienaber et al., 2015a , Hommelhoff, & Richter, 2017). When dealing with negative
leadership all these factors are affected and cause the follower to ultimately quit the organization
or remain miserable with no change. There are some follower’s whose attitudes and behaviors
9
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
contribute to their stress or distrust within the organization, however, when the leader is negative,
the effect is worse for the organization.
How to Change
While a leader can possess a narcissistic personality, or negative traits in leadership,
emotional intelligence can serve as a tool to help the leader to develop positive leadership skills.
While implementing emotional intelligence, accountability and ethics, along with training and
development can create a new path for the leader. Leaders with self-accountability are well
equipped to help their organizations solve problems and achieve goals thus creating a culture of
accountability that motivate their workforces (Ghanem & Castelli, (2019). When a leader
operates in accountability, they will be able to serve the followers effectively and provide the
motivation and support needed to be successful as a team and a leader.
I believe that the concept of leadership is not something we are born with, but
it is a human capacity that can be developed and learned. In order to support this, we
can say that there are people who are not born with a certain talent but because they
practice, learn and become more informed they become better and better (Georgescu
et. Al., 2019).
A narcissistic leader can evolve into a positive leader, if the individual is willing to
develop and grow. This will require self-less actions and a change from self to team. If a negative
leader can, be accountable, develop and grow, there is hope for change.
Conclusion
10
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
In analyzing negative leadership styles and traits the effects are evident and detrimental to
the organization, the followers, and the leader. Understanding that people are not born to hate but
they are taught to hate, infers that there are some characteristics that leaders have naturally; like
charisma, vision, and the ability to influence others. However, there are narcissistic leaders, who
use their power to abuse their followers through tactics that only promote their self-seeking
agenda for self-gain even at the cost of relationships, productivity, and sometimes the
organization. Although these are negative traits and leadership styles, by applying emotional
intelligence to negative forms of leaderships, one could possibly evolve ethically.
References
Celse, J. & Chang, K. (2019). Politicians lie, so do I. Psychological Research, 83(6), 1311
1325. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-017-0954-7
Coetzee, M., & van Dyk, J. (2018). Workplace Bullying and Turnover Intention: Exploring Work
Engagement as a Potential Mediator. Psychological Reports, 121(2), 375–392.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294117725073
Eisenbeiss, S. A., Knippenberg, D. v., & Fahrbach, C. M. (2015). Doing well by doing good?
analyzing the relationship between CEO ethical leadership and firm
performance. Journal of Business Ethics, 128(3), 635-
651. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2124-9
de Vries, R. E. (2018). Three nightmare traits in leaders. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 871-
11
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
Dussault, M., & Frenette, É. (2015). Supervisors’ Transformational Leadership and Bullying in
the Workplace. Psychological Reports, 117(3), 724–733.
https://doi.org/10.2466/01.PR0.117c30z2
Ghanem, K. A., & Castelli, P. A. (2019). Self-accountability in the Literature of
Leadership. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 16(5), 40-59.
Kinicki, A., & Fugate, M. (2020). Organizational behavior: A practical, problem-solving
approach plus Connect. McGraw-Hill.
Holland, P. (2019;2020;). The impact of a dysfunctional leader on the workplace: A new
challenge for HRM. Personnel Review, 49(4), 1039-1052. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-03-
2019-0134
Hommelhoff, S., & Richter, D. (2017). Refuting the cliché of the distrustful
manager. European Management Journal, 35(2), 164-
173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2016.06.007
Jiang, W., Jiang, W., Gu, Q., Gu, Q., Tang, T. L., & Tang, T. L. (2019). Do victims of supervisor
bullying suffer from poor creativity? social cognitive and social comparison
perspectives. Journal of Business Ethics, 157(3), 865-
884. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3660-x
12
WHAT A LEADER IS NOT
Malik, O. F., Shahzad, A., Waheed, A., & Yousaf, Z. (2020). Abusive supervision as a trigger of
malevolent creativity: Do the light triad traits matter? Leadership & Organization
Development Journal, 41(8), 1119-1137. https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-09-2019-0386
Santora, J. C., & Bozer, G. (2018, Apr). Avoid the Selfish Factor: Plan for Succession with Four
Simple Rules. Nonprofit World, 36, 30-31.
Satterlee, A. (2018). Organizational Management and Leadership: A Christian perspective.
Webster, V., Brough, P., & Daly, K. (2016). Fight, flight or freeze: Common responses for
follower coping with toxic leadership. Stress and Health, 32(4), 346-
354. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2626
