Leadership Failure in the Eyes of the

Subordinates: Perception,
Antecedents, and Consequences
Issam Ghazzawi, Ph.D

Issam Ghazzawi
Leadership Failure in the Eyes of the Subordinates:
Perception, Antecedents, and Consequences

 Effective leaders and leadership behaviors and practices are a well-researched area in the
domain of leadership and management.

 On the other side, ineffective or failed leadership has often been lamented in the
literature and has been subjected to limited scholarly inquiry.

 There still exists a dark side of leadership that exemplifies unethical, yet destructive and
toxic leadership that abuses others.

 Using semi-structured interviews, forty-three managers have been interviewed to assess

their perception of failed leadership behaviors, the antecedents of the behaviors, and
their consequences based on their experiential interaction with their leaders.

Issam Ghazzawi
Leadership Failure in the Eyes of the Subordinates:
Perception, Antecedents, and Consequences

 When defining an effective leader, emotional intelligence plays an important role in the
leaders’ ability to lead. This reasoning is argued on the basis that a leader-subordinates
relationship is governed by rules of behavior, cooperation, and dominance among other
variables that are emotionally influenced.

 An organization is as good as the leaders it has.

 Capowski (1994) asserted that “Leadership skills can be taught to some degree, most
experts agree, but they are learned over a long period—and there's no single recipe for
success. You can't really be an effective leader unless you ‘do it,’ and even then you have
to keep practicing” (p. 15).

Issam Ghazzawi
Literature Review: The Traits Approach to Leadership

 Leadership traits are considered to be enduring characteristics that people are born with
and that remain relatively stable over time.

 The traits approach views leadership from the perspective of the individual leader and
assume that leader personal traits produce patterns of behavior that are consistent across
situations.

 Researchers studying traits have posited that traits such as intelligence, task-relevant
knowledge, dominance, self-confidence, energy/activity levels, tolerance for stress,
integrity, honesty, and emotional maturity have the strongest connection to effective
leadership

Issam Ghazzawi
Literature Review: The Contingency Theory of Leadership
and the Situational Factors
 Fiedler (1967) asserted that effectiveness is a product of both individual-specific
characteristics and the situation the leader is in.

 Whether a person is successful in a leadership role or not, all depends on the situation as
on the personality or skills she/he brings to the job.

Issam Ghazzawi
Research Methodology
 About 200 Academic References.

 Semi-structured interviews with 43 Organizational Managers.

 Data analysis was aided with the use of the JMP software program.

Issam Ghazzawi
 Table 1: Characteristics of the Sample (N= 43)
Gender Number of responses (n) Percentage (%)
Male 26 60
Female 17 40
Total 43 100.00
Age Number of responses (n) Percentage (%)
Less than 25 1 2
26-35 9 21
36-45 10 23
46-55 9 21
56 and above 14 33
Total 43 100.00
Position Number of responses (n) Percentage (%)
Upper Management 6 14
Middle Management 26 60
First-line Management 11 26
Total 43 100.00
Experience (in years) Number of responses (n) Percentage (%)
Less than 5 6 14
5 to 10 11 26
10 to 15 6 14
15-20 10 23
20 and above 10 23
Total 43 100.00
Type of Industry Number of responses (n) Percentage (%)
Education 7 16
Financial 6 14
Health 5 12
Hospitality 3 7
Manufacturing 4 9
Service 6 14
Technology 12 28
Total 43 100.00
No. of Employees Number of responses (n) Percentage (%)
Less than 100 9 21
100-499 22 51
500-999 3 7
1,000-4,999 5 12
Issam Ghazzawi
5,000-9,999 4 9
10,000 and above 0 0
Total 43 100.00
Findings and Discussions

Issam Ghazzawi
Findings and Discussions

The Conceptualizations of a Failed/Ineffective Leader

 Negative, judicious, critical, or doesn’t project positive energy: Nineteen out of the forty-
three managers (i.e. 44%) of the sample.
 Not Sincere, not trusting, or vague: Seventeen out of forty-three managers (i.e. 40%) of
the sample.
 Micromanager: Seventeen out of forty-three managers (i.e. 40%) of the sample.
 Self-centered, selfish, egocentric, or know-it-all: Twelve out of forty-three managers (i.e.
28%) of the sample.
 Not civil, hostile, not pleasant, or insulting: Twelve out of the forty-three study
participants (i.e. 28%) of the sample.
 Lacks people skills: Nine out of the forty-three managers or 21% of the sample.
 Closed-minded, narrow-minded, rigid, or opinionated: Nine out of the forty-three
managers (i.e. 21%) of the sample.

Issam Ghazzawi
Findings and Discussions

The Conceptualizations of a Failed/Ineffective Leader

What managers have told me!

• “A failed leader is someone who you can’t easily feel connected with. You feel that she/he
does not care about you. This person is negative, critical of your work, and a micromanager
who you will need to go to him or her always for an opinion.
• “My leader is not approachable and not relational. I mean, you feel left out. You don’t feel
close to her—she doesn’t radiate positive energy.”
• “I had never sensed my boss’s sincerity when guiding me. She is an egocentric and vague
person who only cares about herself. Additionally, she wastes my time in non-productive
meetings.
• “My boss doesn’t believe, nor understand the meaning of empowerment. I feel he doesn’t
trust my decisions, which makes me feel worthless… It doesn’t look good on me as a manager.

Issam Ghazzawi
Findings and Discussions

Antecedents of Failed Leadership Behavior

• Personality Factors/Personal Attributes: Twenty study participants (i.e. 47%).

• A combination of personality and the lack of knowledge: Two managers (i.e. 5%) of the
sample.
• A combination of personality and organizational culture/climate: Three managers (i.e. 7%)
of the study sample.
• Accordingly, a total of 25 managers or 59% of the study recognized the personality factors as
a major attributor to their leaders’ displayed behavior.
• Situational Factors: Organizational Culture and Climate:
Eleven managers (26%) of the study sample.

Issam Ghazzawi
Findings and Discussions

Issam Ghazzawi
Findings and Discussions

Antecedents of Failed Leadership Behavior

What managers have told me!

• “I believe that the major cause of my current superior’s behavior is his personality, he is so
negative and rude… I think his displayed behavior is caused by his nature … his personality…”
• “My boss is insecure … I guess, it is a reflection of his personality... Seems like someone who
does not learn from past circumstances…”
• “I firmly believe he just wants to always remind me that he is my boss...”
• I believe we have a culture that I perceive as an inert one. It is not taking us anywhere… Our
values, beliefs, norms, and what we stand for are not motivating. It doesn’t inspire me nor
motivate or inspire others…”
• “Our culture does not promote creativity. We lack the cultural values and norms that
emphasize the need for employees to feel empowered, to experiment, and to take risk…”

Issam Ghazzawi
Findings and Discussions

Consequences of Failed Leadership Behavior

• Turnover Intention and Turnover: The majority of the study respondents, i.e. Twenty-nine
managers (67%) of the sample.

• Occupational Stress: Twenty-four participants (56%) of the study sample.

• Lower Job Satisfaction: Eleven participants (26%) of the study sample.

• Impaired Performance: Ten study participants (23%) of the study sample.

• Lower Morale: Nine participants (21%) of the study sample.

Issam Ghazzawi
Findings and Discussions

Issam Ghazzawi
Findings and Discussions
Consequences of Failed Leadership Behavior
What managers have told me!

• “I take my stress home every working day. I am miserable at all times. While some employees or
managers enjoy their evenings and weekends, I don’t. I especially don’t feel good on Sundays
knowing that Monday is the beginning of another stressful working week with my boss. I keep my
stress to myself… I have a family to feed!”
• “I do not feel good about being there. I am always unhappy and nervous, I constantly think about my
future and for how long I will take the abuse and be there. I feel a sense of insecurity and
dissatisfaction… I am like others, very unhappy and only buying time…”
• “I am like others are suffering from low morale. I tend to strengthen myself and focus on the positive
things, it is not easy… I am unmotivated, stressed out, and have low morale even if I am away from
work.”

Issam Ghazzawi
Conclusion, Implications, Limitations, and Directions
for Future Research

Implications

• Awareness Training
• Careful Selection and Personality Test
• Behavioral Modeling Training
• Creating a Safe, Supportive Environment, and a Healthy Culture
• Utilize Executive Coaching

Issam Ghazzawi
Conclusion, Implications, Limitations, and Directions
for Future Research
Limitations Directions for Future Research

• A possible respondent bias, as it may be argued that some respondents might not be able to objectively connect and
think through the questions when they responded. Accordingly, the study results could have been overstated.
• The composition of the study sample (i.e. forty-three participants), mostly from Southern California. Accordingly, it is
suggested that future research should have a larger population sample to enhance the generalizability of the results.
• The use of a convenient sample. Accordingly, the current study can make no claims to the representations or
generalizability of its results. Other research studies in different settings might produce different results. Therefore,
the generalizability of these findings to other countries or cultures is not reasonable.
• Future research would benefit greatly from more comparative research and semi-structured interviews with focus
groups of employees, managers, and leaders to examine this phenomenon of leadership and to increase the study
reliability.
• Despite these limitations, the current results do however provide important findings and useful contributions to the
ongoing research into the subject of failed or ineffective leadership.

Issam Ghazzawi
 Thank you!

Issam Ghazzawi