The more relational aspects of destructive behaviour, as perceived by the participants, included the tendency of the destructive manager to belittle and break-down participants, blaming and bullying behaviour, introducing negative competition into the work unit, being unsupportive of participants, and sabotaging the ability of the participant to perform by lack of action-taking.
Gail, Nadia, and Anna described the autocratic leadership styles they witnessed that translated into the belittling and breaking down of followers.
Ja. Um. I think it’s that belittling you and breaking you down. […] It’s breaking down your confidence [Bea: ja]. So, it’s from you coming in and believe that you can
conquer your world. You can own your space. You can contribute, to belittling you and breaking down your confidence. I think it’s in that. (Gail)
… the way they would speak to you in a derogatory manner. Like I’m the manager you do what I tell you. You do not ask questions. Stuff like that. You could never speak your mind and the thing is, yes, I know you are a manager, but maybe I have
And she then starts, then she had this bullying approach. She was very, she is very big built, so she uses the big built structure and like basically like abusing her authority. Then this one day, she calls me, and she is just like dissing me left, right and centre. (Anna)
Fritz and Nina explained how nothing they did was ever “good enough”.
Look, um, he made me out to be completely useless. He would be frank about it, um, no, he would not tell it straight to your face; you would hear it from someone else that you were not good enough for the job or that you should resign should you continue in the way you did. He acted as if he was the only person that actually belonged there. And when a client that he did not want to communicate with contacted him, he would enter my office and tell me straight … um … that the client said that I did not contact the client and then he would demand a reason. It did not matter what I answered. It was never good enough. I was blamed for everything. He would handle it in such a way that made me feel that I was not worthy of the business. I was run down. (Fritz)
Ehum. So, we would every morning and afternoon have daily meetings. Ahm. So that was where we would directly kind of _, so we basically update her on what we have to do for the day and the afternoon to kind of what we actually got done. So that in itself was extremely difficult, because you go in the morning _, so the mornings was fine, but it was more the afternoon _, we then have to go say what exactly we did. And that was very passive aggressive. If you said you were going to do something, but
eventually did not have enough time to do it, so you’d say you would do it the next day. So, it was a very passive-aggressive. She’d say, did you actually get anything done today or … hm … [sighs]. I think also just her tone. It’s hard to describe obviously, but you’d walk out of there every afternoon feeling it still was not good enough. Even though so many other things were, there was one day where … ahm … the power’s off for three hours. And we had the afternoon meeting and I told her well, I didn’t get this done, and she _, well, I wouldn’t say upset, she was just like, well, are you going home now? As if I need to catch up on work. So, I think that in terms of work, reporting to her in that sense, was always difficult. Ahm. (Nina)
Both Nina and Nadia, who were first-time employees, expressed their frustration at the lack of recognition received for jobs well done.
… and I don’t need her to pat me on the back, saying good job, but at least just recognise it. You don’t have to physically or verbally kind of … hm … reward me, but just kind of _, ok, so that was you got that done [inaudible]. She literally didn’t even acknowledge the new positions I got. (Nina)
So, I stood in for her in her position and … um … I think I did a blêddie good job. I’d done a good job and she came back, you know, no credit, not thank you and wow, you’ve actually grown! I am so proud of you! Can’t I, can’t I help you with better _, send you away for development purposes? None of that and it was never recognised what you are doing, and always talk down to you like you are not good enough, and then you knew you _, you were good enough [plaintive], and you put in your best [plaintive], and just recognise me for what I am doing, and that, that never happened. Mm. (Nadia)
Mary referred to the lack of support she received from her manager.
So, when I came with suggestions, he would find every reason to dodge them. And when I needed assistance, like if I would go to him and say, um, I really need this resource, he would do nothing to help. And if I went to him and I’d say things like, actually I am working with my hands tied, he would do nothing. And if other _, if I did not feel he had my back … (Mary)
Nina expressed her frustration at her manager’s disinterest in Nina’s growth and development.
… and the professional development was _, I was constantly asking for anything more. Because, at this stage, I would say three/six months into me working there, I really felt that my job was so mundane, so repetitive. So, I asked her could I go and see more clients? Can I just try and do something a bit different and more
challenging? And it would always fall on deaf ears, to the point where I’d _, I would actually just say, I am taking this on. I would actually tell her, and … hm … then that would cause conflict. Again, not overt conflict in the sense that we would have an argument, but then there was tension. (Nina)
Gail described how the manager introduced negative competitive behaviour into the work unit.
Even though she puts up this front or appears that she is highly confident, she’s actually quite insecure and she’s actually quite fragile. And because of that, she also goes onto these power trips and belittling other people to almost get them to her level. And, she almost enrols you into competition. Everything was a competition in which she obviously wants to win this competition. So, from who’s wearing the best outfits to whose, um, losing the most weight, um, to whose going on the best vacation, um wearing the best jewellery. Um. Everything was always a competition and she would enrol you without your consent. That, that’s kinda the feeling that we felt. […] So, she was always on this trip all the time that she’s competing with us. (Gail)
For Mary, Anna and June, their managers engaged in behaviour that deliberately sabotaged their ability to perform their tasks effectively.
There was, I am thinking of one project for, example where … um … I had an idea and he liked the idea, but he would, every time I put a proposal to him, he would find something else. What do I mean by this term? And I wonder when, when a new
manager arrived … um … somehow that project came up again, somehow it was, let’s record the [redacted], and I said to my new manager, just started_, and I said to him, what about doing a [redacted], and he loved the idea. And he said, write me a
proposal and I looked at my computer, and I had eleven versions of that proposal that I had already done for the previous manager, and he just could never bring himself to say, go for it. He would bring up [redacted] issues all the time. (Mary)
… I mean a simple thing that she did was not authorise anything, it does not matter what it was. [Bea: which meant you couldn’t move forward.] I couldn’t move forward. [Bea: ja] Unless because _. Unfortunately, that is just the red tape in any [Bea: ja] [public sector] context though, where if there is no authorisation, because there is money attached to it, even if there is no money attached to it, you cannot go and implement something without it being authorised. [Bea: that is the link in the step] The signature _, so the thing, the memo was there, my name is there, she hasn’t authorised it and that was basically how it was a struggle for me to. So, she blocked everything, to the extent of where she literally easily could have sabotaged a
programme for the institution. I don’t think she looked at it like that. She just saw, she’s blocking, she’s gonna fight me now on this one. She’s gonna block me. (Anna)
She would … ahm … would give you a project. She would give you a time-line that it was maybe going to be three months. Month into it, she would tell you that now it needs to be delivered within two weeks now, instead of _, you still thought you had two months to do it. Then she will bring your deadline forward. If you try and talk about what’s going on, a why, why … hm … she would then say, if you can’t do it I will get in outside consultants, take the work away from you. (June)
Participants perceived destructive leadership as stemming from the leader’s dispositional and relational characteristics. Leader dispositional aspects sometimes seemed to border on the pathological. My impressions were that participants seemed to experience dispositional aspects as very challenging to deal with. There seemed to be a realisation that, as Fritz said, the manager was just that type of person and that the manager would not be capable of changing. In terms of relational style, the leader was perceived as destructive when his/her behaviour disaffirmed the participants and did not provide or deliberately disabled opportunities for the participants to actualise themselves.
5.3.4 The Effects of Destructive Leadership Behaviour on Participants,