Hidden loss of bad leadership

Conservative politician often preoccupied with megalomania like “Leaders are born not made” to inhibit emerging young leaders but truth of such jargon is scare. However, the term and concept behind “leaders” are equally valid in other sectors than politics. Leaders are not laggers they are ladders. The rise or fall of any organization including political parties, service-oriented institution, finance related corporate are not just because of a few worse executive decisions that they make but because of re-occurring poor leadership decisions that weaken the root of every organization. “The cost of bad Leadership is rarely shown in corporate balance sheet. It appears as lost trust, silent employees, declining productivity, frequent turnover of talented personnel quit, and opportunities that are never trailed.”

Bad leadership

It is often said that employees do not leave the organization only because of the organization’s culture but because of the immediate line managers who portray a toxic leadership by creating environment that hurt employees, stunt innovations and gradually decreasing the performance of the employee, finally resulting in the failure of the organization. Every leader happens to make mistakes, but it becomes harmful only when they refuse to take responsibility, make decisions on their own, practice favoritism, fail to recognize actual employees’ contribution, resist and become reluctant to change, can’t accept or tolerate feedback, no transparent communication, takes whore credit and avoids accountability etc.

The financial cost

Toxic leadership often results in financial losses like increase in employee turnover and recruitment costs, slopping down productivity, increase in absenteeism, failed decision-making, wasted resources and collapse of business opportunities.

The human cost

The poor Leadership has direct impact on decline of motivation on employees. When an employee is not motivated, creativity disappears. Often employees become afraid to speak because somewhere they know putting hands in the mouth of lion can become risky and they must bear all the consequences at the end if they fail to prove their truth against the toxic leader. Gradually, trust erodes. Now the workplace starts to feel like home of stress. Finally, good, honest, loyal, hardworking, skilled and highly talented employees eventually leave. This is the biggest loss an organization should prepare for future. Let us be clear with the following two examples:

Example 1: “When the best Soldier Stops Speaking”