Dysfunctional leaders

Once there is a breakdown in balance between support versus challenge, by parents with a child, by a team leader with team members, or by a national leader with society, then dysfunction will eventual arise through a clearly defined, yet multi-optional set of circumstances.

• The process starts with a breakdown in relationship principles, namely, trust, respect, acceptance or commitment.
• The breakdown in relationship principles causes individual personalities to become imbalanced into either overly controlling, overly responsible or overly avoidant. The following charts show the outcome, using parents giving too much or too little support or challenge to a child.

In the cognitive principle matrix the weakened relationship principles of trust, respect, acceptance or commitment result in a drop in influencing principles and an increase in negative principles or negative concerns as shown below;

As soon as the person loses control, feels pain and takes things personally, then dysfunctional fear arises in the three brains and activates the overly controlling or overly responsible or overly avoidant personality, created through an imbalance in support versus challenge in early years.

The fight or flight response activates secondary defense mechanisms in the leader. In the cognitive principle matrix, Murray Bowens "8 interlocking concepts" have been adapted and used to show how the dysfunctional leader creates a dysfunctional team, but manages to keep it in dysfunctional balance, by assigning roles to various team members.

The team “Leader” (any team member displaying trust, respect, acceptance and commitment to the team, their role and to themselves) is the only person not being dysfunctional.

---------------------------------------------Team ----------Role---------Self

Behavioral types

Type 1. Conscientious person [team]……………… X

Type 2. Conscientious person [role]…………… …………………..…X

Type 3. Infatuated [with self/role]……………………………..…..….X………......…....X

Type 4. Impact [short-term] person…………………X…………………………......…..X

Type 5. Compliant/conscientious person…………... X………………X

Type 6. Controlling person [role focus]……………………..………….X………..…......X

Type 7. Leader…………………………………...........…….X………………X………......…..X

Type 8. Non-contributor…………………….....………..nil……………...nil…….....……nil

The above eight types can come with differing personalities, abilities and experience, such as:

Using four personality criteria, namely

1. Overly Controlling.

2. Overly Responsible.

3. Avoidant

4. Normal range.

or using three measures of skill and experience, namely:

1. Highly skilled and experienced

2. Moderately skilled and experienced

3, Low skills and experience.

These personality traits, behaviors and abilities can be used to describe possible dysfunctional team members.

They are used as an indicative guide to dysfunction which blocks team flow, including the team leader who may be loyal, but lack skills.

Dysfunctional person [possible signs]

1. Type 3. Infatuated person: Will be working for their short term self interest and will not be a team player. The more highly skilled and experienced they are, the more influence they have to work against the team’s goals.

2. Type 4.  Impact person. Will have a similar outcome as Type 3 above, however, their negative impact will be discovered after a much longer period, due to their personal skills and creating a belief that they are a "team" player. They tend to quickly move on to their next promotion.

3. Type 6. Controlling person: Their lack of empathy and lack of concern for others causes low morale in the team. They are overly challenging and attack the person rather than the process or the behavior.

4. Type 7 Leader: Where the leader has low skills and experience, too many mistakes will be made. The team will under perform and team members may try to protect their leader, because of his/her personal qualities.

5. Type 8 Non-contributor: Only when they are highly skilled and heavily relied upon by the team.

Supporting the dysfunctional person [enablers]

Yes person: Type 1 normally overly responsible trying to please everyone. They will enable the dysfunctional person to hold on to their position. Normally moderate to low skill level.

Hero: Type 2 or Type 5. Normally highly competent. Used by the dysfunctional person to promote themselves using the ideas of the hero. The hero is only recognized and praised within the team, when it suits the dysfunctional person.

Scape goat: Type 2, 5 or 8. Normally moderate to low competence. Used by the dysfunctional person to blame team mistakes when communicating outside the team or blaming the dysfunctional person’s mistakes within the team.

Lost Person: Type 1, 2, 6, or 8. Where the person is avoidant and either not committed to the job or to other team members. Normally moderate to low skills and ignored by the dysfunctional person.

Clown:Type 1, Normal personality, but with moderate to low skills and used by the dysfunctional person to diffuse responsibility away from themselves.

ANOTHER WAY TO LOOK AT A DYSFUNCTIONAL LEADER

Rather than examining the person, we can examine the relationships, using the individual components of  trust, respect acceptance and commitment.

Murray Bowen's “ 8 Interlocking concepts” of family therapy, can be adapted and combined with the Cognitive Principle Matrix’s "theory of balance” to identify dysfunction within the team:

CPMatrix Balance: [Strong relationship principles and negative principles]

| Trust------------Respect-----------Acceptance-------------Commitment

|-Fear--------------Anger-------------Critical----------------Guilt/Anxiousness

Note: Negative principles are necessary to achieve balance in life. Eg Commitment without guilt, will lead to mistakes not being corrected.

CPMatrix Out of Balance: [Ego driven and negative concerns]

| Fantasy----------- Pride---------------Greed-----------------Self-centeredness

| Paranoid fear-----Rage---------------Rejection-------------Shame/Panic

Example: Trust without fear leads to fantasy; Anger without respect leads to rage [abuse]

The following nine dysfunctions behaviors affect the relationship principles of trust, respect, acceptance and commitment.

1. Team secrets/Trust:

The dysfunctional person who lacks trust can manipulate the team by using secrets, whereby they are the only person who knows the “whole story”. By destabilizing the team with lies and secrets, they maintain control and feel secure.

Outcome of 1. The Dysfunctional person creates a fantasy, while the team members may be fearful or become paranoid.

2. Triangles/Respect

• To maintain control the dysfunctional person uses triangles to get their needs meet.Eg.
• Uses the “yes man” to conspire against the “scape-goat”
• Uses the “hero” to promote himself with the leader.
• Uses the “clown” to diffuse the questions from the “conscientious person”

3. Victim/Respect

To maintain status as competent the dysfunctional person blames the “Scape-goat”.

Outcome of 2 & 3.

The dysfunctional person develops pride in their ability to control the team, while the team members can feel anger or rage, for being disrespected.

4. Closeness-distance/ Acceptance.

The dysfunctional person uses closeness-distance to either destabilize a particular person or to form clicks against a particular person who they perceive is a threat to them.

5. Projection/Acceptance

The dysfunctional person projects their feelings on to another team member either because they can’t face the emotion themselves or they don’t want to be exposed.

Eg. The dysfunctional person accuses the “Scape goat” of going behind the dysfunctional person’s back, because they lack trust in themselves.

In the team meeting the dysfunctional person blames the “lost person” for not committing to the team, because the dysfunctional person did not commit himself/herself.

6. Gender/Acceptance

The dysfunctional person discriminates against another team member based on their gender, because they are fearful of the abilities of the person or do not how to control them.

7. New-old/acceptance.

When the dysfunctional person has the team destabilized, yet balanced due to most members feeling some dysfunction, then new members are not easily accepted into the team, unless they can quickly accept the dysfunctional role allocated to them.

Outcome of 4,5,6 & 7

The dysfunctional person becomes greedy and wants more from the team, while the team members are critical and some feel rejected.

8. Special rules/Commitment:

The dysfunctional person provides benefits to some members in exchange for commitment to the dysfunctional person. Benefits may include, the best roles, promotion within the team, etc.

9. Cut-off/Commitment

The dysfunctional person will cut off some team members because they are not liked or they create problems for the dysfunctional person.

Outcome of 8 & 9.

The dysfunctional person becomes very self centered, while the team members feel anxiety or guilt, with some feeling shameful or having panic attacks.

Long term exposure within a dysfunctional team may cause depression in some team members

SOLUTION TO A DYSFUNCTIONAL TEAM LEADER

If the team leader cannot be replaced then start at the beginning and work through the support versus challenge issues and either:

• Build support in the leader using relationship principles of trust, respect, acceptance or commitment, to overcome paranoid thinking, rage, rejection and hopelessness.
• Build support in the leader using influencing principles of courage, assertiveness, evaluation and self-control to overcome fear, anger, criticalness, anxiousness, guilt or confusion.
•  Challenge the false positive behavior of fantasy thinking, greed or self-centeredness.
• Build Support using spiritual principles, namely, hope, forgiveness, humility, peace, suffering and unconditional acceptance and unconditional giving to restore balance based on strong rules, boundaries and consequences.

The goal of using support or challenge is to build awareness through education and to build resilience through modeling relationship principles, influencing principles and spiritual principles.