Organizational Leadership Analysis

Leadership
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Leadership
The existence of humankind is structured in such a way that all facets of life have leaders of sorts. Since time immemorial, people have embraced the inevitability of having leaders. Leaders have numerous responsibilities, but the bottom line is to influence meanings and values in an unequal relationship (Alvesson & Blom, 2019). In the organizational context, leaders form the foundational basis of any organization. Their core mandate is to ensure that operations run seamlessly by coordinating and facilitating various departments. For instance, leaders craft and promote the culture of their organizations. They also provide employees with requisite support and resources besides making decisions and solving the challenges their organizations encounter. Such are the hallmarks of a conventional leader. As such, the success and competitiveness of organizations depend, to a considerable extent, on leadership styles. In essence, leadership styles make or break organizations. Undoubtedly, how excellently or poorly leaders lead in their organizations is entirely predicated on their character. According to the Britannica Dictionary (n.d.), a character is how someone thinks, feels, and behaves. In the context of organizational leadership, character defines how well or ineptly a leader performs. For instance, an effective leader must always think objectively and constructively before making decisions touching on their organization. This inevitably leads to optimal results, while the contrary is true. In addition, a good leader must exhibit emotional intelligence to build robust relationships with their employees. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and leaders encounter numerous challenges when discharging their duties. One fundamental challenge involves aligning their characters with their organization's interests. Sometimes this proves unachievable, and leaders abuse their powers to the detriment of their respective organizations. Former president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, must have observed this when he said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power" (Gov Leaders.Org, n.d.). This shows that some leaders adopt repressive and harmful leadership styles that have far-reaching ramifications for their organizations (Asad & Sadler-Smith, 2020). The character of leaders is integral in defining their leadership styles, and leaders must strive to adopt appropriate characters that will work for the overall good of their organizations.
Narcissistic and Hubristic Leadership Contrast
As indicated above, one fundamental principle of good leadership is emotional intelligence. This means having the capacity to put the interests of others first and being considerate of opposing views. Leaders who demonstrate such dispositions easily influence and motivate their followers, which inevitably results in enhanced performance and competitiveness. However, the contrary is true with narcissists and hubris leaders, whose conceit does not allow them to show any regard to other people’s opinions.
Narcissists
Narcissists are poor leaders, and the outcomes of their leadership styles are often injurious and destructive. Oftentimes, narcissists employ leadership tactics that associate closely with power (Asad & Sadler-Smith, 2020). Narcissistic tendencies incline towards straining their relationships with their followers, which, in turn, alienates them. This is usually counterproductive since the resulting toxic work environment hampers engagement from employees, which ultimately leads to a decline in performance and productivity. Being a narcissist is an inherent condition that affects one’s personality negatively. At an individual level, narcissists exhibit such characteristics as excessive self-importance, grandiosity, and low empathy. Moreover, they have an insatiable hunger for power and adulation, which results in their being prototypical leaders (Asad & Sadler-Smith, 2020). Concisely, they exhibit behaviors detrimental to the work environment and overall business enterprises.
Behaviors of Narcissists and Their Ramifications
Since narcissists are increasingly self-centered, they care little about the welfare of others and, in some instances, are openly condescending. As such, they become ineffective leaders because they cannot cultivate or maintain meaningful relationships with the people they lead. In the long end, the dissonance proves costly and detrimental. Clarke (2011) intimates that effective governance has a lot to do with how organizational leaders engage their employees. As such, any imposition of power that flagrantly disregards employee interests and views leads to diminished effectiveness and ethical validity. Such behavior is what narcissists exemplify, and one way they manifest it is by making vital decisions unilaterally. This contrasts with an ideal situation where leaders readily allow employees to participate in decision-making. Research indicates that involving employees is paramount as it enhances their commitment, creativity, and innovation (Mambula et al., 2021). The contrary is true because sidelining them suppresses their motivation, which, in turn, jeopardizes productivity.
The other behavior that narcissists exhibit is hampering effective communication between them and their employees. More often than not, they adopt one-way communication systems, whereby they only communicate to issue orders and instructions to their followers. They seldom allow their followers to voice their concerns and views. This is unadvisable because, in today's business environment, which is fast and competitive, internal communication plays an integral and instrumental role in influencing the financial performance of organizations (Vora & Patra, 2017). Without proper communication, performance declines considerably. This happens as a result of the employees feeling valued and appreciated, which consolidates their engagement.
Hubris
On the flip side, hubris leaders exhibit overconfidence and disrespect to others and a lack of understanding of their place in the world. It is an acquired condition prompted by the ascension to positions of significant power. Often it happens where there are no constraints on how one should exercise authority (Asad & Sadler-Smith, 2020). As such, power shapes the behaviors of hubristic leaders in maladaptive and unproductive ways. Psychiatrists hold that hubris is rather an acquired syndrome, not a personality disorder. According to them, some factors that contribute to its tremendous development include the length of time the leaders remain in power, a lack of restraints on how they should behave, and recent successes. Further, they characterize it as an adjustment disorder since it is often triggered by stress or threat.
Ultimately, the behavior of hubris leaders accordingly escalates the likelihood of unintended consequences that are often detrimental to organizations’ development and competitiveness. For instance, CEOs with hubris tendencies are likely to engage in high-risk undertakings, given their over-confidence. Since they tend to disrespect other people, they often disregard opposing opinions, which leads to undesirable and costly outcomes. In a word, hubris leaders exercise power to attain their over-ambitious objectives, and they flagrantly disregard advice from others. They are full of themselves and believe to be answerable only to God. Due to their misplaced attitudes to their followers, they promote a toxic work environment, which affects the overall performance of the organizations they lead. For instance, many employees find it strenuous to work under hubris leaders, which inevitably leads to heightened employee turnover. More often than not, turnover is devastating to organizations in terms of direct and indirect costs (Mamun & Hasan, 2017). In a word, just like narcissists, hubris leaders cause their respective organizations more harm than good.
Gaps in Leadership Practices
Conventionally, people view leadership as the solution to the varying challenges they face in life. They believe that leaders have the potential to remedy such adversities as business failures, climate change, and educational failures, among myriad others (Tourish, 2014). This presumption, which is misplaced to some degree, often leads to a common error and the failure to achieve the desired outcome (Alvesson, Leadership: Convergence and Divergence in Leadership Relations, 2019). In a frantic bid to oblige their followers, many leaders employ traditional leadership methods geared towards finding a solution to the adversities they encounter. As such, they lead from the front by offering guidance and direction, crafting a vision for change, and being innovative. On the flip side, their followers obey, implement innovations, and unquestioningly embrace the vision propositioned by their leaders. This contrasts with transformational leadership, whereby a leader is open to scrutiny from all directions (de Haan, 2015). However, these ideal expectations in traditional leadership fail to materialize owing to the many challenges that face conventional leadership.
Conflict Management
One of the most prevalent challenges in traditional leadership is conflict management. Undoubtedly, conflicts form an integral part of an organization as people are wont to experience friction, disagreements, and disharmony from time to time. According to Alvesson (2019), issues revolving around conflicts ought to lead to revisions of constructions and evaluations of leadership. Therefore, leaders must formulate mechanisms to identify, understand, and resolve conflicts while integrating the interests of all parties involved. That is usually a tall order for many since it calls for fairness, sensibility, and efficiency, and they lack the requisite skills to prevent or handle conflicts. Some do not even realize that conflicts can be beneficial to organizations (Madalina, 2015). They also fail to understand that different types of disputes require different management approaches. Consequently, they adopt inappropriate methods to resolve conflicts, thereby aggravating the already volatile situation. This could be detrimental to organizations since disgruntled employees may decide to leave the organization. The circumstances could get compounded if the disgruntled employees happen to be the most outstanding ones in the organization. When leaders encounter situations where they cannot decisively resolve conflicts, they incur the risk of burnout (Krauter, 2020). In addition, they experience anxiety and other obstructive emotional reactions that compromise their performance. Therefore, leaders must endeavor to overcome the challenge of conflict management. They can achieve this through different strategies, which include proper and effective communication and emotional intelligence.
Communication Breakdowns
In conventional leadership, leaders have to contend with communication breakdowns, which essentially refer to poor communication. In the organizational context, communication refers to the techniques people employ to relay and share information on such matters as organizational goals. The information may also touch on the mechanisms leaders intend to implement to accomplish the said goals. In addition, communication informs stakeholders about the policies and regulations of an organization. Similarly, it plays an instrumental role in helping establish solid interpersonal relationships. In short, communication facilitates the smooth running of affairs in an organization. Leadership plays a pivotal role in strengthening or weakening communication. This is because leadership is a relationship that involves shared meanings between leaders and followers (Alvesson, Leadership: Convergence and Divergence in Leadership Relations, 2019). As such, leaders must communicate to express themselves in a way that captures the attention of the intended receptors (Bucăţa & Rizescu, 2017). Unfortunately, communication fails to flow as expected owing to several factors. First, people have different perceptions, leading them to make varied, sometimes wrong, interpretations. Second, leaders could get overwhelmed by the information they need to disseminate. This could lead them to overlook it. In addition, this might lead them to send the information to the wrong persons, thereby creating confusion. It is also worth noting that the effectiveness of communication depends, to an extensive degree, on the emotions of the person relaying information and the receptor. Sometimes, the two parties may misinterpret each other's emotions, which drastically hamper the effectiveness of the information they share. The other factor that contributes significantly to communication breakdown is the language barrier. This challenge is endemic in international organizations where leaders must communicate with employees from diverse ethnicities. A language barrier can cause misunderstandings that could lead to conflicts and frustrations (Buarqoub, 2019). They also result in the loss of money, time, and sometimes lives. Ultimately, when leaders fail to communicate effectively, they get overwhelmed by expectations.
Overwhelming Expectations
The other challenge associated with traditional leadership methods is being overwhelmed by expectations. As indicated above, many followers perceive their followers as the panacea to the numerous challenges they encounter. They view leaders as owning positive capabilities that allow them to exercise decisiveness even in the face of uncertainties (Simpson et al., 2014). This inevitably places leaders in a precarious position because they are con...