Rejecting leaders work against the best interests of their team members.
They are interested in what happens, but only for their own gratification.
They bask in the glory of wins, taking all the credit.
Meanwhile, they dismiss their staff and take them for granted.
They don’t share themselves.
Nor do they share their joy with their teams.
Classically, this is a person who prefers to sit outside the circle.
They will sit in their office all day, not talking to anyone else.
Just getting on with their jobs.
This is part three of my series on toxic leadership traits.
My dance with rejection
Very early in my startup I was given this exact advice.
Stay in your room, close the door and just get on with what you need to do.”
At the time I’d been dealing with a series of minor blips and blobs with my new admin team.
It was fundamentally, because we lacked systems and structure.
They were overwhelmed and asking me for help.
And I was overwhelmed too, and needed space to think.
Yet, this was easily the worst piece of advice I’ve ever received.
What happened next was Shakespearean.
Rejecting leaders
Over the course of literally about a week, this environment grew to a level of toxicity I couldn’t believe.
How could doing nothing result in such a reaction?
The workplace became completely cold.
Bearing in mind this was me, in startup, 5 years ago.
And to that point it had been a pretty fun environment to work in.
But things had gone a bit off kilter as we grew to about 6 staff.
There was one team member in particular, who worked an entire shift without saying more than 2 words to me.
And that was rough, considering it was a startup clinic.
And it was literally myself, a few patients and this person for the entire day.
Toxicity that was borne entirely from rejection.
Traits of rejection
At their worst, rejecting leaders have several toxic traits.
They are especially critical and often dismissive of others’ ideas and efforts.
A tendency exists to place a distance between themselves and their team members
They are in fact the polar opposites of the emotional leader.
Often lacking in basic skills such as empathy.
This is the trait that lowers staff morale the most, and leads to a common feeling of unapproachability.
Nemesis
I’ve told everyone already how much I enjoyed this show on ABC.
Let’s reconstruct a rejecting leadership personality.
And to do this I would look no further than the man himself.
Former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.
Morrison, reported to be a very authoritative and controlling person to be around.
This was no clearer, than when the member for Reed, Fiona Martin (a psychologist!) was interviewed.
Her body language when describing her interactions with Morrison were truly chilling.
As was his statement, when discussing the issue at hand (her rejection of his proposal).
“We had had a clear conversation”.
We all now how this leaders’ journey ended too.
Having sworn himself into the portfolios’ of 5 other ministers.
Including his own 2IC, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
I imagine the sense of rejection that those ministers would have felt.
And it’s clear how damaging those actions were to the party itself at the ballot box in 2022.
Great things about rejecting leaders?
We have to find positives and there is again, a time and a place for this type of person.
Although turbulent, when tasks need clear, decisive action – a rejecting leader has a place.
We see this play out in chaotic environments and periods of high turbulence.
Like driven leaders, their ability to focus on the tasks at hand does have it’s advantage.
They can get an organisation away from seriously treacherous circumstances.
But unfortunately, it is a bit like escaping a bushfire using a flamethrower.
Drawbacks of rejection
The drawbacks are many.
These leaders create environments of hostility.
Nobody feels safe, and their need for authority and control takes over everyone else.
They tend to be dismissive of others, lacking in empathy and often disengaged.
In the healthcare setting in particular, these types of leaders are organisational poison.
And this particular style, will see team members running for the exits within no time.
A move toward “affiliative” leadership
The best thing a rejecting leader can do, is actually give others’ the floor.
Moving towards a more affiliative style of leadership.
One in which they are not the dominant voice.
But rather they get to stay in the background, holding space.
A 2IC can be an incredible buffer for this type of a leader.
Or even a leadership team, one that provides a voice for all team members.
Stay tuned next week as we look to dissect the passive leader.
