Toxic Leadership

[Hatha Sunahara]

The Army explains why there is an epidemic of suicides among veterans returning from the battlefields around the world. They actually acknowledge that some of the blame is 'toxic leadership'. Here:

http://freepatriot.org/2014/01/09/ar...cide-epidemic/

The Army even has a definition of toxic leadership:

“Toxic leadership is a combination of self-centered attitudes, motivations, and behaviors that have adverse effects on subordinates, the organization, and mission performance. This leader lacks concern for others and the climate of the organization, which leads to short- and long-term negative effects. The toxic leader operates with an inflated sense of self-worth and from acute self-interest. Toxic leaders consistently use dysfunctional behaviors to deceive, intimidate, coerce, or unfairly punish others to get what they want for themselves. The negative leader completes short-term requirements by operating at the bottom of the continuum of commitment, where followers respond to the positional power of their leader to fulfill requests. This may achieve results in the short term, but ignores the other leader competency categories of leads and develops. Prolonged use of negative leadership to influence followers undermines the followers’ will, initiative, and potential and destroys unit morale.”

My initial reaction to this was that they have put their finger on what's wrong with all of 'western civilization'. Everyone who has worked for the government, the military, or large corporations knows this description. This is also an excellent description of our "criminal justice" system.

It's only possible when the followers (those being led) are automatons.

In VietNam, soldiers fixed toxic leadership with 'fragging' their officers. Today, they fix it by suicide, which is not a real fix, but allows the cause to continue. This perhaps is a demonstration of how much more effective the military's brainwashing techniques are today than they were 40 years ago.


Hatha