Going out to staff is bad for business

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Roula Khalaf, publisher of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Isabel Berwick is the FT computer publisher and author of “The Future-Profreation”

What puzzles me the most from the jobs in 2025 (in a competitive field) is the surviving prevalence of Shouty, Negative and Underling-Blaming leadership styles. The complicated heads have always been with us, of course, although I had imagined that they would start moderating their behavior once the workers could call them online. Apparently not. Tiktoker ben askinsIt has 850,000 followers, kills with horrible stories of Bad Boss from its spectators. It is the content that falls into the jaw.

While these behaviors force staff to act quickly and achieve things (of course they do! A recent essay in the New York Times, “America is learning the wrong lesson of Elon Musk’s success“For organizational psychologist Adam Grant, it offers an explanation and a test, if you need it, why leaders who operate a culture of fear and criticism do not get good results. Even if you don’t mind the staff” snow flakes “, and the people face it is bad for business.

It is clear that most business leaders adopt higher places for positive, even noble reasons. What does some of these smart and prominent humans engage in degrading behavior? The analysis of “what is below” gives us a glance to understand the problem, which is, as any therapist tells us, the first step towards change.

In a 2017 document In the “abusive supervision” in the culture of the workplace, the authors Bennett Tepper, Lauren Simon and Hee Man Park find three factors that promote the dark behaviors of the heads: “social learning”, which includes the family history of aggression of an individual and the rules of corporate culture; “Treatment of Identity”, which may include the treatment with difficult staff and the uncertainty of the leader; and “deterioration of self -regulation”, which would summarize as “anger management problems”.

Unless it is a real narcissist (this is a All other story), organizations owe their staff, as well as their P&L, to take measures on bullying heads. Who is responsible for managers and leaders, that is,? Because there are regular underlying causes of head behavior, it can be addressed. Training, continuous and constructive feedback, and honest self -reflection are the type of strategies that will help heads better. (Or help -to leave.)

We can and should have sympathy for the heads in 2025: Running Anything is a game of “Whack-a-Mole” challenges, both local (as well as the generation, for example) and for planning supply chains in a rate time). It is enough to drive anyone who comes off. But there must be a more constructive and profitable way to lead during the uncertain and even more volatile future.

The most important thing to do the executives now, according to the leadership expert and the columnist of Sydney Morning Herald, Kistin Ferguson, is to become aware of what they not Know – One of the perennial problems even facing reflective leaders is that they end up in limited information bubbles, often because staff with useful things to contribute are too afraid to have a different point of view. This is especially true when the head is intimidating.

Ferguson believes that “traditional leadership approaches (hierarchical decision -making and information control) are no longer enough. Complex problems require complex leadership solutions.” While describing in the next book Blindspotting: How to see what others missWe need leaders who are “open to having their own biases and are willing to accept that their personal opinions may not reflect those of the people who lead.”

A relevant side note is that heads must be careful for people who copy their interests and hobbies, which can create a special type of Symphantic Echo Chamber. I learned about this phenomenon of Kate Lye leadership coach. As I reported to the work newsletterOne of his CEO customers was happy to reach a new company to find a senior team that were all, like him, fond cyclists. It was late that it was no happy possibility: they played the new boss to get favor.

We cannot solve the leadership problems of the world in 700 words. But at least we can stop shouting and listening to what the companions have to say. Although preferably not as long as everyone is dressed in Lycra from head to toe.