Week 6 - The Dark Side of Law Enforcement Leadership

Last week’s blog posting dealt with law enforcement leaders and Lincoln’s Principles of Leadership.  Since week 2, we have mainly discussed the brighter, more positive side of law enforcement leadership and way to motivate and influence law enforcement officer in a positive manner.  This week we will look at the reverse of the coin or the dark side of leadership (or destructive leadership).

Destructive Leadership or Dark Side Leadership Behavior

Einarsen, Aasland, & Skogstad (2007) define destructive leadership as behavior, by a leader or another in a leadership position, whose intent, by repeated actions of some frequency, undermines, destroys, and abuses the organizational significance and purpose and thereby emasculates the organizational goals and accomplishments, if any, and ultimately demoralizes the enthusiasm and inspiration in job fulfillment and gratification of those that follow.  This behavior is self-centered, whereby the leader acts on their “inner urges, compulsions, motivations, and dysfunctions that drive [destructive leaders] to success or undermine [individual or organizational] accomplishments (McIntosh & Rima, 2007, p. 34).

Grondel (2016) identifies several behavioral traits that researchers attribute to dark side leadership tendencies found in law enforcement officers (1) narcissism, (2) compulsiveness, (3) codependence, (4), paranoia (5) passive-aggressiveness (p. 8).  Barbara Kellerman (2004b) writes:

[L]eadership is not a moral concept.  Leaders are like the rest of us: trustworthy and deceitful, cowardly and brave, greedy and generous.  To assume that all good leaders are good people is to be willfully blind to the reality of the human condition, and it severely limits our scope for becoming more effective at leadership.  (Kellerman, 2004b, p. 45)

It should be easy to comprehend that if a law enforcement leader possesses any of these behavioral traits and acts in accordance with Einarsen, Aasland, & Skogstad’s (2007) definition of destructive leadership (or dark side leadership behavior), the law enforcement leader has a stiking probability to launch the agency into turmoil, scandal, condemnation, and dispute.  It is important to note that dark side leadership behaviours or destructive leadership are not a leadership style, but it is a way that one acts or conducts themselves, especially with interacting with others.

In an eariler blog post, we discussed the transformational leadership as the type of leadership style that cross-sectional, multi-generational law enforcement officer gravitate towards.  Understanding that the majority of law enforcement officers appreciate transformational leaders, one should note that transformational leadership has a dark side as well; it is pseudotransformational leadership (Northouse, 2016).  Nohria & Khurana (2010) explain that pseudotransformational leaders are hypocritical when compared to transformational leaders; however, pseudotransformational leaders do exhibit the transformation characteristics and behaviors, but do not maintain a moral base so to classify as a genuine transformational leader.  Riggio (2013) says that an effective transformational leader not only talks the talk but “walks the talk,” thereby exhibiting the actions that demonstratively show the leader as an exemplary role model of behavior and action to those under the leader’s direction and influence.  

  

A pseudotransformational leader falls way short of being effective (or positive) and “great at managing the impression of being transformational, but unfortunately, [their] shadow [does] not [match the] substance” of a true exemplary role model (Nohria & Khurana, 2010, p. 745).

Kaiser, LeBreton, & Hogan (2015) and Kellerman (2004a) assert that tryannical leaders (or destructive leaders) like Hiltler, through impression of transformation, excited and influenced many Germans through his mastery of comunication, but more importantly his mastery of oration.  However, Hitler fell short of inspiring followers to exceed the their original expectation in achieving and carrying out more than either the follower or leader requires and does not look to the greater good, but to one’s self with self-centered ambition.  Hitler’s motives and behavior in his leadership principles were immoral, yet his attributive traits were nearly genious in application.  If a law enforcement leader possessed the behavioral characterisitics of Adolf Hilter, the law enforcement officers and the agency as a whole would suffer similarly like the Germans and the community would suffer much like the Jews.  These behavior, not leadership styles, describe and are mere examples of the dark side of leadership.

References

Einarsen, S., Aasland, M. S., & Skogstad, A. (2007). Destructive leadership behaviour: A definition and conceptual model. The Leadership Quarterly, 18, 207-216. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2007.03.002

Grondel, D. T. (2016). An investigation of the relationship between leadership styles and dark leadership behavior in law enforcement executives (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertation and Theses database. (UMI No. 10251057)

Kaiser, R. B., LeBreton, J. M., & Hogan, J. (2015). The dark side of personality and extreme leader behavior. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 64(1), 55-92. doi:10.1111/apps.12024

Kellerman, B. (2004a). Bad leadership: What it is, how it happens, why it matters:. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

Kellerman, B. (2004b). Leadership warts and all. Harvard Business Review, 82(1), 40-45.

McIntosh, G. L., & Rima, S. D. (2007). Overcoming the dark side of leadership: How to become an effective leader by confronting potential failures (Revised ed.). Grand Rapids: Baker Books.

Nohria, N., & Khurana, R. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of leadership theory and practice: A Harvard Business School centennial colloquium. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.