Corporate Venom
/I recently took part in a podcast hosted by my colleague Victoria Soell. The theme was what neuroscience had to say about narcissism, but rather than pursuing a wide psychological perspective, we focused on so-called ‘narcissistic managers’ in the workplace. The label is used pejoratively, but just having an inflated regard for oneself hardly characterises the negativity that the phrase is intended to convey. ‘Psychopathic managers’, a term often used synonymously, does have those connotations, but hijacking a label from a criminological setting is no more helpful (the full podcast can be viewed at https://open.spotify.com/episode/2uyzfhQpMO0OLE79oIaeks?si=a5c26811d50f47f7).
There are many reasons why particular managers might be less competent, including a lack of appropriate training or having been elevated beyond their ability to fulfil the role. Our podcast conversation focused instead on managers who may in fact deliver results very effectively, but who create team environments that are negative and toxic. Their success is part of the problem: they may be promoted to increasingly powerful roles, at significant cost to the widening number of team members reporting to them.
A question we addressed in the podcast was identifying the behaviour that typically characterises these managers, and we drew on one of the scales in the Challenge of Change Profile®, labelled ‘toxic achieving’. The measure is identified by three traits: time urgency, believing that ends justify means, and anger. In other words, they want everything done yesterday, they’re not concerned about the costs to anyone else in getting a result, and anger is their default mode if the outcome is not to their satisfaction.
Another common characteristic is that they tend towards the extraversion end of the extraversion-introversion dimension (usually referred to as just extraversion). There are many theories of extraversion, but the best explanatory model is stimulus intensity modulation. This suggests that extraverts have relatively low levels of resting basal brain arousal: their stimulus-seeking behaviour is aimed at increasing basal arousal to the optimal level. Introverts, with relatively high levels, modulate arousal downwards by limiting stimulation, and there is ample research evidence for these differences based on objective measures such as anaesthetic sedation thresholds.
Scores on the Challenge of Change Profile scales all have a preferred direction, either high or low. This is particularly important with scales such as rumination, where having a low score is definitely preferable. In contrast, there is no value-judgement inherent in being extraverted or introverted. Although extraversion is often associated with toxic achieving it isn’t in principle toxic, and relating it to management styles requires a more nuanced view that distinguishes between what might be called benign as opposed to malign ways in which it is expressed.
There are two related but discrete aspects of extraversion, sociability and impulsivity, and the extraversion scale we developed as part of the Challenge of Change Dream Team® programme was designed to distinguish clearly between them. Sociability reflects the conventional view of extraverts as outgoing and gregarious, and will tend to have a positive effect on team climate. Impulsiveness – acting on the first idea that comes to mind without necessarily thinking things through – might easily transform into impatience to get on with the plan, and if thwarted, impatience might in turn transform into anger. Frustration can often be a precursor to anger, but whether or not that happens is more a function of the degree of habitual toxic achieving behaviour than impulsive extraversion. Toxic achieving is a sufficient cause of negative anger, independently of how extraverted a person might be.
Toxic corporate behaviour is often excused on the grounds that it gets results, but it isn’t a prerequisite for successful management. To explore what accounted for more positive ratings of managers by their direct reports, one of our Challenge of Change case studies used a variety of data, including scores on the Profile. We found that positive ratings overwhelmingly related to measures reflecting the ability to express emotion appropriately and to respond sensitively but objectively to team members’ emotional upsets, and managers who possess these ‘people skills’ are in fact no less productive than toxic achievers, but without the cost to the team.
There is no doubt about the destructive effects that toxic managers inflict on team members, and their behaviour actually impacts on themselves as well. Our toxic achieving scale was developed in response to shortcomings in the well-known concept of ‘Type-A behaviour’. Although somewhat outmoded, research evidence shows that Type-As are significantly more vulnerable to heart disease, no doubt as a consequence of the repeated cardiovascular demand imposed by habitual anger.
One of the questions we’re asked on our training programmes is what should be done about toxic managers. The best solution would be to not employ them in the first place or to let them go as soon as the negative effects of their behaviour become known, but employees are often fearful of reporting on these managers, so those responsible for making appointments or promotions may not be aware of the damage these individuals are causing. However, team members do have an option: subjected to what is often unambiguous bullying by these managers, the best solution is to leave.
This can sound glib, and there’s no doubt about the challenges that changing jobs can incur, but ask yourself these questions: can you do anything to change these managers’ behaviour, or have them dismissed? While you should certainly make your feelings known, neither is likely. Are you waiting in the hope that the managers might themselves move on? This means living in misery that will impact on both your work and home life, and it might not happen for a long time; even if it does happen, how much control would you have over selecting their replacement? Saying that life’s too short to surrender it to someone else’s anger is a cliché, but on the occasions when we’ve heard back from people who did leave, they invariably wish they’d done so sooner.