The Darkside of Leadership & Diversity

Leadership Types

Leadership is a process followers are guided by a lead figure and influenced to achieve objectives, goals through direction. Leadership studies have dominant disciplines such as, transformational, servant, visionary, authentic and situational leadership. Academic literature on leadership are plentiful (Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Gooty et al., 2009; Greenleaf, 1997) and (Blanchard, Zigarmi and Nelson, 1993) just a handful of studies.

Popularity of leadership studies is due to the positive aspects associated with good leadership. Leaders are hugely influential and important when they use their personality to influence senior management and define organisational culture by either enhancing or damaging the teams they lead (Hogan and Kaiser, 2005).  Transformational leaders are inspiring intellectual stimulate and inspiring others (Bass, 1999). Leadership is so varied there are even sub-styles of leadership such as transformation leadership that is authoritarian (Schuh, Zhang and Tian, 2012), or charismatic leadership (Shamir, House and Arthur, 1993).  

An effective leader is supported by certain traits such as confidence, ambition, drive, motivation and intellectual ability these are markers for success (Kirkpatick and Locke, 1991). We want our leaders to be exemplary with value-based grounded in ethics and morals (Copeland, 2014).

Dark Leadership

Leadership is a controversial topic narcissism provides an explanation on why some leaders have bad behaviours (Higgs, 2009). Dark leadership can be described as a leader’s dogmatic vision and manipulation of others for self rather than the interest of the organisation (Conger, 1990).  Dark leaders are not always bad. Shamir, House and Arthur (1993) argue that the traits of dark leaders such as being charismatic leaders are sometimes favoured.

Dark personality

Dark personality is measurable (Jonason and Webster, 2010) used a succinct number of measurements  a 12 item scale and created what  is known as the dirty dozen, the core triad being narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. Other measurements can be in the form of a taxonomy of personality traits. Taxonomy of traits can be measured as indicators for the derailment of manager’s career and bad managers increase bad behaviour amongst employees (Hogan and Hogan, 2001).

Dark side leaders have narcissistic personality traits (Resick et al., 2009) (Higgs, 2009). Interestingly not all academics view narcissism as being a bad trait. According to Rauthmann and Kolar (2012), dark triad traits are not all equal, narcissism is seen in a slightly more positive light when compared with the other traits. The narcissist may be charming, highly conscientious and even attractive this can dilute the levels of negativity felt towards leaders with this trait. Narcissism is just one component of the dark leadership. Miao et al., (2018) argues that high emotional intelligence can be used as a tool for manipulation. Narcissism is the brightest dark triad trait with no adverse effect on employee wellbeing (Volmer, Koch and Göritz, 2016). Owens, Wallace and Waldman (2015) contend that narcissism doesn’t automatically have a negative impact if the leader also has traits of humility. Though this is an oxymoron humility can be beneficial for positive outcomes.

Dark triad personalities are impulsive and sensation seeking who have a high appetite for risk (Crysel, Crosier and Webster, 2013). Dark leaders overuse instinct that is self-serving, Sheard, Kakabadse and Kakabadse, (2012) suggest animal-like behaviour led by gut instinct & emotions trumps rational thoughts. (Conger, 1990) charismatic leaders do not always win over followers. If leaders display unconventional actions and have an aggressive style this is likely to bring about the alienation of potential supporters.

Dark Triad and impact on teams

There is empirical evidence to substantiate claims that dark leadership has an effect on employee wellbeing. Narcissism by itself does not increase employee bullying but an increase is measured when there is an overlap with psychopathy, two measures within the dark core (Tokarev et al., 2017). There is established evidence that dark leaders cans affect the organisation and its employees (Burke, 2006; Hogan and Hogan, 2001).

Nassif (2018) suggest that dark leadership lurks under the radar within teams and dark leadership can be moderated.  Team compositions and dark leadership can be influenced using HR management by taking into account the existence of dark personalities build in better job design and performance management to take into account dark triad traits. Factoring in dark leadership into job design can cause an imbalance through the preoccupation with personality and may unnecessarily label leaders, for example (Resick et al., 2009) lines are blurred when leaders offer bright and dark leadership; narcissism is the brighter side of the dark triad,

Leadership and entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur leaders leading with positive emotions also influence employee’s willingness to act with an entrepreneurial spirit (Brundin, Patzelt, & Shepherd, 2008). Confidence is a positive trait but when leaders become visionary with sky-high self-confidence and excessive pride this can fall into dark leadership. (Haynes, Hitt and Campbell, 2015) highlights the dark side of leaders and entrepreneurs manifest itself in greed and hubris.

When establishing a new venture, organisations need to claim legitimacy for growth and survival across diverse audiences (Fisher et al., 2017). It could be argued that legitimacy also extends to organisation culture, not just the products and services being sold to consumers. There are different motives for early nascent entrepreneurs to build a start-up but those with dark triad personalities had motives that are positively associated with a lack of drive linked to a true entrepreneurial spirit (Hmieleski and Lerner, 2016). Leaders should care about the people they employ. Higher human capital correlates to the ability to establish success for high tech start-ups (Colombo and Grilli, 2010).

Dark leadership and diversity

(Chin, Desormeaux and Sawyer, 2016) there is value in developing leadership identity and embracement of diversity can assist with leading authentically. A diversity agenda is becoming increasingly common within organisations and there are ongoing debates on why diversity is important in an organisational context, Diversity can incorporate culture, race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. Increasingly there is support for organisations to focus on inclusion to enhance the workplace and this starts with a diverse workforce.  Diversity is important (Stewart, 2016) a diverse pipeline helps foster difference of opinions. Inclusion goes one step further than diversity to take into account other areas of underrepresentation that should be reflected at work that embraces both diversity and inclusion (Shore, Cleveland and Sanchez, 2018).

Even without dark leadership as a potential influence, there are basic diversity issues that need to be discussed. (Eagly and Chin, 2010) The joining of leadership and diversity should be encouraged as a research area to optimize the roles of leaders to reflect the shift in modern organisations. In a globalised world, it is important to reflect on diverse groups and open up opportunities for leadership positions as different experiences can enrich the leadership landscape. Cultural heterogeneity can inhibit creativity and innovation due to the same way of thinking. (Buengeler, Leroy and De Stobbeleir, 2018) the glass ceiling is widely used as a gender inequality reference, this phrase can also be applied for diversity as the numbers of diverse candidates in leadership positions are lacking.

Leadership paradigms need to shift with the new ways organisations are organised with new emphasis on diversity and inclusion (Chin, Desormeaux and Sawyer, 2016).

Diversity and leadership are more common in the academic discussion but the topic of leadership and dark leadership influences on diversity are more scant. Practical steps can be taken such as unconscious bias training and coaching, this does not address if certain personality traits cause bias in the first place. Using a grounded theory process the proposed research project seeks to explore the effects and influence of dark leadership and diversity within start-ups to extend current literature.

Gaps in knowledge

Author/Date	Theoretical/Conceptual Framework	Methodology/Methods	Findings	Gaps
Hmieleski, K. and Lerner, D. (2016).	How the dark triad affects productivity and motives for early stages of entrepreneurs before a business is started.	Primary data sample was from MBA students. A secondary sample was surveyed twice to evaluate the validity of entrepreneurial motives with a small interval between the first and second survey,	Individuals with dark triad are not proportionally higher for nascent entrepreneurs, those who do are more likely to use entrepreneurship as a means to adopt value rather than create it.	The study is focused on early stages of entrepreneurship and can be developed to understand dark triad motives at a start-up stage. Motives are general and based on productivity, more specific measures such as diversity can add to the existing literature
(Kearney and Gebert, 2009)	The study suggests that transformational leadership can enhance the potential of untapped benefits of team diversity.       ..	Survey via email. Longitudinal study testing hypothesis.	Transformational leadership can help with differences amongst team members become an asset rather than a liability.	The findings are based on a study within one organisation, it focuses on transformational leadership as an integrator for diversity.
(Furtner, M., Rauthmann, J. and Sachse, P. 2011).	Dark triad and self-leadership.   .	Participants are students from Europe who had a short interaction and then self-rated against the dark triad.	A positive correlation for narcissism found but no correlation for Machiavellianism and psychotherapy	Self-loving leaders who  measure as a dark triad and their influence  on team composition & diversity

We are all capable of light leadership and dark leadership, the difference is the spectrum and intensity of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychotherapy we display, whether if this is our true self or just parts that peak and ebb depending on our mood.

This was part of my literature review for a research paper on Dark Leadership and the influence of diversity on nascent start-ups. What I wanted to do was study dark leadership and the influence of diversity within Commercial but I didn’t because it was too close to home!

You might like to read about other leadership styles