Beware of noisy and critical leaders

In a post-pandemic world in which organisations are redefining culture and workers are recalibrating their career progression expectations, the function of leadership has never been more important, writes Travis Schultz.

In a post-pandemic world in which organisations are redefining culture and workers are recalibrating their career progression expectations, the function of leadership has never been more important. Effective leadership crafts a pathway that aligns the needs of the business with the desires of the team, but sadly, all too often, dominance-motivated managers with their Machiavellian behaviours disengage, frustrate, and disconnect their teams at the expense of talent retention and organisational growth.

An article that I recently read on Yahoo! suggested that, according to employment search site Indeed, over 5.5 million Australian workers are expected to seek out new opportunities in 2025. And while the motivations for doing so will vary – including the rising cost of living, seeking out more life-synchronous roles and promotions – a key driver of role churn is undoubtedly the negative influence of the divisive and double-crossing managers who roadblock talented subordinates out of a sense of self-preservation! Indeed identified that stress and workload were said to be the key drivers of seeking new opportunities for 23 per cent of respondents. I wonder if the stress of gaslighting, back-stabbing, and perfidy by their line managers is often a contributor to that?

“Dominance-motivated leaders” are those who seek to control their teams, usually through some type of “divide and conquer” approach in which the team members whose talents are seen as a threat are neutralised by separation, lack of communication, or sabotage. On the other hand, a “prestige-motivated leader”, craves respect, success, and organisational triumph. I was interested to read about research conducted by Hemant Kakkar and Niro Sivanathan of the Kellogg Business School, in which they found that in small group scenarios, the dominance-motivated leaders physically separated the highly skilled team members from the rest of the group and deliberately paired them with subordinates with whom they could not work effectively! Sound familiar?

I have a theory as to why so many organisations are struggling with the cultural impact of the treachery of traitorous and self-absorbed managers. It’s as simple as the old concept of “sevens hire fives” – managers and leaders who are themselves only average performers actively look to recruit lower performers to bolster their own position of power. And of course, “eights hire nines” because eights are themselves high-performers who instinctively drive organisational improvement, unintimidated by the aptitude and ability of a nine or ten. I wonder if during the post-COVID-19 labour market crisis in which the talent pool available for hire was wafer thin, “sixes” and “sevens” rose to positions that were in truth, above their level of competency, and now that normality is returning to the labour market, they are doing whatever it takes to preserve the status quo?

In some ways, the calling card of the dominance-motivated leader is “Putinesque” – they are so concerned about maintaining their position of power that they will do whatever it takes to remove threats beneath them in the hierarchy. How many Russian oligarchs and political ascendants have had unfortunate accidents – falling off balconies, plane crashes, and accidental poisonings? And how many leaders of average competency have given poor performance reviews of subordinates, been critical of rising talent, and marginalised the most capable in the team to neutralise the risk to the leader’s own position?

A recent study by Harvard academics Hashim Zaman and Karim Lakhani found that most corporate executives have witnessed the sabotage of junior employees during their careers, finding that most frequently, the treachery was directed at the most capable junior colleagues. In their survey of 335 executives, 30 per cent had seen this sabotage in their organisations, while 71 per cent had seen it at some stage during their careers. A striking 28 per cent said that they had seen it in their current roles, and 60 per cent said they had been impacted by sabotage from above at some stage of their careers!

For those of us trying to create an inclusive and high-performing culture in our organisations and have leaders who focus on outcomes and value creation rather than a green dashboard, I wonder if the lessons from this “betray below” phenomenon might be:

1. 360-degree reviews can be weaponised, so apply with caution and be sure to validate the responses.

2. Performance reviews should have multiple viewpoints to reduce risk of distortion.

3. A collaborative culture helps build trust and reduces the incidence of silos.

4. Beware the noisy critic who seldom has nice things to say about those further down the food chain!

As Confucius said, “A great man is hard on himself; a small man is hard on others”.

Travis Schultz is the managing partner of Travis Schultz & Partners.