The leadership shadow: How to recognise and avoid derailment, hubris and overdrive

Abstract

In his influential book Capital in the 21st Century Thomas Piketty (2014) shows that the present rate of return on capital being higher than economic growth is leading to increasing wealth and income inequality, which ultimately stifles our growth and prosperity. For some time I have noticed a similar pattern applying to top leadership in corporates, where current growth rates of managerial discretion and remuneration topple increases in leadership effectiveness, which is leading to organisational inequalities that are stifling our economy's development, agility and growth.In this article I look at the immense pressures on the function of leadership, on leaders and their followers, from an organisational, ontological and personal perspective. I try to demonstrate that there are three areas of conflict: the projections and expectations put upon leaders, the confusion of misleading definitions of leadership, and an internal conflict which always emerges when taking up a leadership role. I describe and explore the emergence of a splitting phenomenon called the leadership shadow which is a common consequence of these pressures, and suggest a few local solutions to this great societal leadership predicament.

Dropped on the way to the top: Gender and managerial derailment

“…Derailment and derailment potential have received relatively limited attention as a focus of organizational research, but they are heated topics in organizations. Popular management books advise ambitious managers that awareness and careful control of their self‐sabotaging behavioral tendencies are necessary to avoid being derailed (e.g., de Haan & Kasozi, ; Dotlich & Cairo, ; Irwin, ). Even leaders who do not perceive themselves to be at risk have a strong interest in trying to predict who else in their organizations might go off the rails, given that estimates of the costs of a failed senior manager or executive can run into the millions of dollars (Hogan, Hogan, & Kaiser, ).…”

Hubristic leadership: A review

“…As Collinson and Tourish (2015) observed ruefully, the charismatic and heroic models of leadership so passionately embraced by business schools in educating the next generation of CEOs may serve, albeit unintentionally, as incubators for hubris whilst simultaneously overlooking the virtue of its antithesis, humility. In the absence of any acknowledgement of the powers of authenticity and the perils of reckless overconfidence and over-ambition (and even worse, the contempt these engender), the management education system might be poised to propagate further hubristic excesses and thereby create the potential for derailment amongst the next generation of leaders (see Collinson and Tourish, 2015; De Haan, 2016; Ladkin and Taylor, 2010). A more commendable, responsible and sustainable pedagogical stance is the promulgation of the skills of critical analysis and reflexivity as potential safeguards against the palpable threat posed by the emergence of hubris in the upper echelons of business organisations.…”

Dark side correlates of job reliability and stress tolerance in two large samples

“…With the increasing interest in leadership and management failure (Dotlick & Cairo, 2003;Hogan, 2007) and the development of reliable instruments to measure the "dark-side" traits (Hogan, Hogan, & Warrenfeltz, 2007) there has been a growing literature of which dark-side variables might be predictable measures of worker derailment and failure across many senior level, jobs (De Haan & Kasozi, 2014).…”

“…Leisurely (H1e) would be negatively related to both Stress Tolerance and Reliability This hypothesis is based partly on the previous literature in this area (Furnham et al, 2012(Furnham et al, , 2016Gaddis & Foster, 2015) as well as the data that suggests these dark-side factors are negatively associated with emotional stability and conscientiousness measured at both domain and facet level (Bastiaansen, Rossi, Schotte, & De Fruyt, 2011;Samuel & Widiger, 2007) It was also predicted that all four Moving Against people (Cluster B) factors (H2) namely Mischievous (H2a), Bold (H2b), Colourful (H2c) and Imaginative (H2d) would be negatively related to Reliability. This is based on the extensive literature that suggests these dark-side traits are most strongly related to leadership derailment because of dishonesty, selfishness and the inability to form and maintain relationships (De Haan & Kasozi, 2014;Hogan, 2007). No hypotheses were formulated for the Moving Towards others (Cluster C) traits.…”