All successful companies are successful for different reasons, but dysfunctional companies are dysfunctional in the same way. - Leo Tolstoy
An organization can be a leader (in certain field) only if its leaders are functional. The two major factors that come to mind when I think of dysfunctional organizations are poor performance and negative workplace politics. And the people responsible for making sure that these things function in the organization are leaders. Before I researched about leadership I assumed that technology and capital are the key factors that drive the organization success. Leadership is the most important competitive advantage of a company. The foremost criteria for a business strategy should be its leadership strategy. Poor performance is the reason for a failure of a business and poor leadership is the reason for poor performance. The primary goal for a leader is to create an environment for people to communicate and work together in one direction. For Example, people on boat rowing in the same direction move fast towards the destination whereas people rowing in different directions gets them nowhere. It is not necessary the leader be present on the boat, it is just sufficient to follow the instructions of the leader.
Many profitable organizations have unproductive work habits and bad internal politics. But what these organizations are not aware is the fact that they will soon show a decline in performance in future. The size of the organization has nothing to with the communication problems. Large or small, communication can breakdown very easily in an organization with poor leadership. The reason being managers who concentrate on one area e.g., marketing and have no time to look into the internal challenges of organization, dysfunction is bound to creep in easily.
There are several causes for an organization being out-of-sync. Managers act like dictators and don’t give a chance for disagreements. No allowance of any feedback for the leader is another reason. Increasing number of management layers, which makes communication difficult with the lower levels. One cause that I have experienced during my time at an organization is ineffective meetings with no productivity. Negative internal competition kills the scope to celebrate the successful results of productivity. Management team is always fighting for positions instead of planning for innovation. Uneven distribution of workload and not using the resources efficiently can be put under minor causes. There is one other cause that I learnt in my previous course “Organizational Behavior” for poor performance of organizations, is poor working conditions. Lack of proper heating and cooling systems in the workplace can hinder the performance.
Leadership cannot be done alone; a leader should always have at least one follower. A leader cannot be dysfunctional alone; he has to act according to his follower, which means he is not the only one responsible. Dysfunctional leadership either means being ineffective or unethical. Sometimes a leader and his/her followers have good ends and rotten means sometimes they have just the opposite and sorting that out is easy. For example: Hitler was a great leader but the path he took was a rotten. The symptoms that can best describe a dysfunctional leader are being incompetent, rigid leadership, being callus, corrupt and evil.
A bad leader is someone who has responsibility over a group of people or an organization, and who misuses the leader-follower relationship by leaving the organization in a worse condition than when he first found it. Leading a dysfunctional organization is not easy for everyone. There are personalities who do well with dysfunctional organizations, and there are those who do damage to the organizations, and to themselves. In between there are the people who may not flourish, and don't get the job done.
Leaders can assist in changing their style and impact to one that is positive and constructive. This can be achieved by limiting their time, sharing their power, not believing their own hype, getting a firmer grip on reality, Compensating for their weaknesses, and being balanced. They also need to establish a culture of openness, where diversity is encouraged, should have a strong and independent advisor, establish system for checks and balances, and get reliable and complete information from variety of people. We cannot afford to ignore bad leadership; but we can work towards stopping bad leaders misusing their power. Our future depends on it.
