Leadership: Leaders, Followers, Environments

Leader selection, development, or diagnosis

Most leaders, and therefore most destructive leaders, rise through hierarchies in organizations. Leaders emerge from a large pool of contenders. At each stage of their climb through the corporate or organizational ranks, it is possible at least in theory to observe their behaviors and promote them or not, depending on their skills and talents. However, noticing counterproductive behaviors is not always easy to do. As noted earlier, not all individuals who eventually become toxic leaders display toxic behaviors or negative characteristics (or their “true colors”) during their climb to their leadership posts. Ken Lay (Enron CEO) apparently did not display visibly destructive traits or engage in toxic behaviors during most of his tenure in corporate leadership. On the other hand, Lay's hand-picked chief financial officer, Andrew Fastow, had a reputation for arrogant aggressiveness and combative behavior.¹¹¹

While an important predictor of future behavior is previous behavior, many executive selection processes do not explore relationships with former associates to identify harmful characteristics.¹¹² Many individuals can be charming during an interview or cocktail party reception. It is harder to charm or fool the people with whom they work and interact on a daily basis. In employee selection, there is no substitute for proper background checking with previous employers and associates, even going several jobs back. To be sure, it is often ...