Abusive Leadership: Understanding How You Affect Your Team
Aug 19, 2024
Are you ready to step into conscious, intentional leadership rather than letting your emotions sway your decision-making or responses? This episode of Leadership is Feminine is an honest look at abusive leadership where host Kris Plachy illustrates the consequences of abusive leadership, and how to address the root cause in order to be a more effective leader.
Kris brings to light one of the biggest leadership obstacles we face - not recognizing that it's our role as leaders to understand and work with our team, rather than expecting the team to work around us. Kris also asks us to reevaluate our emotional reactions to mistakes or issues within our teams. Whether it's us avoiding conflict or resorting to insults, either way, we're not doing anything to advance the situation. Instead, we need to take ownership of our emotions, learn how to work through them, and channel them in a positive manner that helps to develop our team members.
The episode also touches on the importance of self-awareness in leadership. You can't effectively lead someone in the direction you want if you don't even know yourself. Kris explores the delicate balance between being both loving and direct, honest and kind and stresses that when leaders emanate such qualities, they not only uplift their team but also themselves.
Kris passionately calls out abusive leadership, urging leaders to understand their role and use it for fostering a healthy work culture, not to harness power or control. Instead, she urges them to embody a leadership style that enhances development, learning, and growth for everyone involved.
Join Kris for this transparent and insightful episode as she guides you towards conscious leadership, urging you to step out of the emotional turbulence and lead with love, understanding, and firmness.
“I think it is up to the leader to understand and love and pour into the team member. It is not the team member's job to understand and pour into and love you.”
Key Takeaways From This Episode
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Positional Authority: Explaining what positional authority is and how people are usually socialized to grant this power.
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Contrasting Supportive and Abusive Leadership Styles: Examining when a leader is allowing their mood to impact the culture and the work environment.
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Self-awareness for Leaders: Importance for leaders to understand themselves and their teams.
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The Damage of an Abusive Leadership Style: Discussing the negative impacts of abusive leadership on the work environment and the team members.
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Navigating When Team Members Make Mistakes: The importance of addressing the issue and doing so with kindness and respect.
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Encouraging listeners to Lead with Love and Focus on a Co-creative Goal
Contact Information and Recommended Resources
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Transcript
Kris Plachy:
Well, hello and welcome to Leadership is Feminine. I'm Kris Plachy, your host, and I'm happy to have you here today. If you haven't yet, go to thevisionary.CEO/merch and get yourself a really cool sweatshirt or hat or tumbler or coffee cup that says Leadership is Feminine. I'm having so much fun watching you guys pick those up. Uh, get one, get some for your team. I absolutely adore it. I, you know me, I love merch. I love, uh, all the things.
Kris Plachy:
So just want to remind you that that is currently available. And we have coupon. If you go, when you check out, you just type launch15, you'll get 15% off your first order. So I would love for you to get your own, very own little Leadership is Feminine gear, as it were. So I have a lot of things that I've been wanting to talk to you guys about. It's been a long summer. We did our interview of women who have sold their businesses. Thank you all so much for that feedback.
Kris Plachy:
If you loved that series, I would absolutely adore it if you would write a review about the podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcast. I did get quite a bit of feedback through my DM's and stuff that that was all very helpful to you. So I'm glad to hear that. I think there's so much more that we can continue to unearth with one another about how to think about selling a business, how to go about selling a business, how to know if you even want to sell your business. There's just a lot more to learn, and I'm thrilled about that. Last week, I shared with you one of the podcasts that I made for my Sage clients, that is part of the Sage program is a private podcast. I wanted to give you a little bit of a look into the way that I work with my Sage clients. It's a much more intimate and different experience than I think most people are used to.
Kris Plachy:
My newer Sage clients, I get consistent feedback that's kind of like, "Wow, I just didn't expect this. I didn't realize how responsive you'd be. I didn't realize how much I would be learning just through this process." And then ultimately, how supported you would feel, how they would feel. And that's what I want for each of you, because I feel like that's what all we all we want, all of us, when we're a woman who is inclined to navigate new waters and feels very much like that pioneer spirit, that visionary spirit, it can feel lonely and confusing. And even if you try to unearth the answers that you want from your team members, you're not going to get what you need. I know that because they aren't you. They haven't been where you are.
Kris Plachy:
They don't think like you do. They don't have the gravitas you have. They don't have the risk that you have. And so there's just a. There's always going to be a little bit of a gap. And that's why being in the Sage program, working with someone like me, who, even if I haven't had your specific experience, I've worked with so many successful women that there's just nothing you're going to bring here that we can't solve. And to feel so held in an environment of strong women, I just,
Kris Plachy:
I'm just really proud of it. So I hope that you enjoyed that episode. So this week, I want to talk to you about something that I've touched on in a variety of different podcasts. This one is sort of a direct, is probably a little more direct than maybe I've done in the past because it's built out of some direct experiences that I've had, direct conversations that I've had over the last several weeks. So we've titled this podcast abusive leadership, which sounds a little aggressive, but it is aggressive. The first thing I will say is, I believe that leaders who are abusive are abused leaders. I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist or any of that, but I definitely believe just like, hurt people hurt people. Right.
Kris Plachy:
Abusive leaders are abused leaders. When you're the boss of a team of a group, when you're in charge. So whether you are the CEO or you're the manager, or you're the lead volunteer or you're the chapter director or you're the whatever, right, your title, your role carries with it positional authority. So you already enter the room with authority and power. Whether you think you do or not, it doesn't matter because you already have it. People will give it to you. That's just how we have been sort of socialized. I think it's just a human species.
Kris Plachy:
There's someone who's always in charge, and whoever's in charge is sort of granted that permission to be in charge. So I think that when you're already in charge, you already carry a tremendous responsibility, because how you use that positional authority is very impactful, whether it's intentional or not, we all know that that can swing either way. So I can have a, a position of leadership, and I can be supportive and kind and direct and honest, loving, firm. I can be focused on your development, your growth. I can see your potential before you do. I can hold it for you.
Kris Plachy:
I can encourage you, inspire you, motivate you. I can do all those things. And we know- I know that each one of you listening to this knows that person, that leader, that coach, that teacher, that neighbor, that person in your life that saw more in you than you saw in yourself. And they, even if they were direct or sort of held an expectation of you that you thought was hard, you tuned into them and you were inspired by them because you knew that they were invested in you, that they didn't cloud the relationship they had with you, with their mess, with their emotional immaturity. You see, it's so easy for me now to see when someone needs someone else to do well so that they will feel better about who they are. I have had several conversations with people that I love, who have worked with or played for people who are abusive, who use their leadership role not just to help someone improve their skill and be better, but to insult, to be cruel, to diminish, to harass, to manipulate. And the reason that anyone would ever do that is because they don't understand that other people don't make them feel the way that they do.
Kris Plachy:
So if you're the boss and someone makes a mistake, and that mistake is really disappointing, like, "Dude, I'll end here. Okay, that's not good. We gotta figure out a solution, right? We gotta figure out, why did it happen? How do we solve it? You know, how do we go forward and how do we make sure this doesn't happen again?" Right. Understandable. We can even say, "Oh, my gosh, this is really disappointing. I'm bummed about how this is coming together. I would have preferred it went this way. Tell me about what went on.
Kris Plachy:
What was the reason?" All of that would make perfect sense. What doesn't make sense is to say, "Oh, no, it's not a problem", because we're avoiding conflict. And what doesn't make sense is for us to say, "Well, you are a stupid idiot, so it doesn't surprise me." That's not okay either. Those two examples. Oh, it's okay. No problem. I'll take care of it.
Kris Plachy:
That's conflict avoidance. Guess where that's coming from: your own inability to feel or deal with that emotion of disappointment. You just don't want to deal with it, so you'll just take care of it. Meanwhile, you're going to harbor all this resentment towards someone who made the mistake, and that's going to come out in how you interact with them. Or you blame this person for feeling so disappointed, for feeling embarrassed because of the mistake, and you insult them, you are cruel to them. "No surprise. There you go again.
Kris Plachy:
You don't seem to get anything right. Let's see if you can do it next time."What the hell is that? That's you blaming them for your emotion and taking it out on them. And here's what's true. Either example. Oh, so I'm fine, no problem, I'll take care of it. Or, yeah, whatever, demo. Why you gotta be so stupid? I can't believe you did that again.
Kris Plachy:
Either one of those doesn't advance the player, it doesn't develop the person. All you create when you do those, choose one or the other. All you do is create a person on your team who is less capable than they were before. If you take it over and you don't address it, you don't develop them. They feel embarrassed, they feel usurped, they feel incompetent, or they feel unnecessary. If you yell at them, insult them, tell them terrible things, they feel embarrassed. Shame, fear. They don't want to make another mistake if that's how you're going to treat them, they don't want to make another mistake.
Kris Plachy:
So guess what you don't get? You don't get their best self. And guess what? You probably also get more mistakes because they're afraid of you. They're afraid of feeling that way again. Chastising people is not how you get the best of them. Maybe in the rare point, whatever, 8% of people, it will work. And that's probably because that's where they were, what they were raised in, so they learned how to defeat it in their own mind. Most people do not grow under that. And I think with, with very limited exception, meaning like narcissists and people, psychopaths and sociopaths, I think that most of us who either say, "It's okay, no problem", or insult people, we're not doing that on purpose.
Kris Plachy:
We're doing that because that's how we were treated. We're doing that because that's how we learned how to deal with issues and mistakes that we never really learned, first of all, how to take responsibility for our own emotions. Like, this is such a drag, this mistake happened, and I feel embarrassed. I feel shame, which actually has nothing to do with anybody other than me. My job here as the leader is to help my team member in this moment figure out how to solve this problem, and I can't insult them into a solution. And I also, if I take it from them because I don't trust them anymore, I can't get them
to the place of being able to find a solution. Right. Neither one of those is gonna work.
Kris Plachy:
But if that's how I was treated, if that's how I learned, then obviously that's what I'm going to do. And I teach and coach and advise women every day of my life. And 95% of what we're working on is this. How to know, how to figure out how to become a version of ourselves that maximizes my results, their results, and the team's results. It's understanding my behavior first. You can't ever expect to be able to lead someone in a direction that you want to go if you don't even know yourself. But so many people who end up small business owners who are now inadvertent leaders, because I know most small business owners did not wake up and think, "I'm going to be a leader". You didn't think that.
Kris Plachy:
You thought, "I'm going to have a business". But if you hire people now, you're leading them, and you can't treat them like you treat your children, you can't treat them like your dad treated you, or, I guess you can. But guess what's going to happen. People will stay because they're afraid of you. They'll stay because they want whatever your company can offer them, but it isn't you, or they won't stay. And if you have a revolving door, we need to look at your revolving moods and are people - I said this in a story that I posted -
Kris Plachy:
are people playing jump rope with your mood every day? Like, is she in a good mood? Is she cranky? Did she wake up on the right side of the bed? Did she take her meds today? Right? You've heard people say this stuff. I know you have. That's because you're unpredictable. Why are you unpredictable? Because your moods, you believe are based on them, are based on what's happening around you, not what you're thinking about. And if we really did see that every single person that works for us is a resource, and that if I invest in this resource, if I choose to see the best in someone, and I choose to believe that not everybody's going to be a good fit, not everybody's going to be able to rise to the occasion of the role. Of course not. But that isn't a personal failing of mine or theirs. If I can not make everything that happens in my business
Kris Plachy:
such an emotional yo yo.People make mistakes every single day. If you lose your mind every single day over mistakes, you are terrible to work for. I'm just telling you the truth. You don't have to be furious to hold someone accountable. In fact, you shouldn't be. It's perfectly fine to say, "Hey, like this mistake here, this was a really unacceptable mistake.
Kris Plachy:
We've got to figure out why this happened. We've got to talk about how we make sure it doesn't happen again. And here's what will happen if it happens again, love. Because it can't. Like, these are significant mistakes. I don't have to be mad at you. And if I am mad at you, I'm mad because of my own reasons."And it's not enough to lose your mind and be insulting and careless with your words and then apologize.
Kris Plachy:
It's not enough the words are in that person's head. You have given them a narrative from a position of authority about who or what they are. And that pattern, this is what I watch in people that I know, the pattern of either avoidance or yelling, insulting, demeaning, minimizing, that pattern of doing that and then coming back and saying, "Hey, I'm really sorry, I was just having a rough day. It was just a tough. That was a really big deal, and I lost my mind for a minute. Hey, I'm really..." No, that's abuse.
Kris Plachy:
And maybe this is a harder podcast for some people to hear. Maybe you're mad at me for doing it. I don't really know. I just know that you all can see it in other people. I know that you know when someone's doing it to you, or has done it to you. I know you can see it when it happens to other people. But do you see it when you do it? I study this. I do this for a living, and I still try and manage myself.
Kris Plachy:
And I don't get it right every time. I know that there is a truth about being a human being, but I think that when you decide to raise your hand and say, "I'll be in charge", I do believe it comes with responsibility at every level. It doesn't matter if you are a teacher. It doesn't matter if you are the president of the PTO. It doesn't matter if you are anywhere. Anywhere. You have a positional authority and that your words can be used to have significant impact and you wield them errantly or you ignore people. I believe that's irresponsible.
Kris Plachy:
And anyone who comes to me, who works in that environment or is existing in an environment like that, I tell them that that is someone who doesn't know how to manage themselves and therefore could be creating an unhealthy or even abusive culture. And unless that leader makes a decision to change on their own and get the support they need to do that, there's nothing you need to do to fix them. I saw this quote. It's actually Tig Navarro. Is that her name? Tig Navarro? She's a comedian, but she was doing a serious interview and I just loved it. And she, I think it was her, but she was talking about her stepdad and I guess they'd had a lot of issues. And he apologized to her as an adult and he said, you know, I just, I kind of finally realized that it's up to the parent to understand the child, not for the child to try and understand the parent.
Kris Plachy:
And I think the same thing is true about leadership.I think it is up to the leader to understand and love and pour into the team member. It is not the team member's job to understand and pour into and love you. But ironically, when you do that work to understand other people and understand yourself and come from that place of understanding and neutrality with a focus on a co creative goal, instead of what I want, what you need to do for me, when you really radically change into that, I think you'll be amazed at how many people love to work for you. We need so much more of this in the world right now. So much more. It's interesting because I think you all know I love soccer and I don't know enough about soccer to speak terribly intelligently. But I can tell you just from an observations perspective, I've watched the women's national team since probably like the early mid to like the 2010 era, right? So we've had several coaches.
Kris Plachy:
Jill Ellis was the one who took them to World cup and I think the Olympics and then Vlodko took over and now we have Emma Hayes. And it's almost like you can see the evolution of, you know, I think Jill has a reputation of being pretty stern. I've never met her, so I can't speak to that. But I've heard what other players have said and then I think Vladko was such a nice guy and I've heard the ramifications of that. And then you have Emma Hayes, who is a genius when it comes to strategy and tactics in terms of play on the field. But she also understands performance and she understands that the players that she has are already ridiculously talented. And so she was asked, what was the difference you brought to this team? You've only been here two months and you just won Olympic gold. And she said, just love.
Kris Plachy:
Just love. It's why this podcast is called Leadership is Feminine. It's why I do what I do. I believe that if we allow ourselves to be ourselves, to be all of it, to be loving and direct, honest and kind, I actually think we all win. I think it's okay. It's what we all want, right? We just want people to be honest with us and yet also not be cruel in the process or hide it and not be able to talk to us about something that we know us in the room, but nobody will tell us because people are afraid that they're going to seem mean. But you can be incredibly kind and also deliver very clear feedback. And so if you're a woman and you're leading a team and you just, this is the straddle, you're frustrated with your people all the time.
Kris Plachy:
You're annoyed that people are disappointing you. They are making a lot of mistakes. They're not consistent. You just, you just feel like you're in the hamster wheel. That is solvable. But it doesn't begin with finding better people. Because if you're chasing better people somewhere, you're trying to find the better employees. You're not going to find them because the better employees want to work for a leader who's better, who's advancing herself, who's creating a co creative environment where people feel seen and supported and are challenged to be better.
Kris Plachy:
That's where those people are. So it's all solvable, but only for the willing. So anyway, those are my thoughts for the day. I'm so glad that you tuned in and I'll talk to you next time.
Kris Plachy:
Remember that I asked you to be a part of my Catalyst podcast event where I'm inviting you to become a visionary catalyst. Share the podcast link with women that you know. And as soon as you hit 20 shared links, clicks on those, we can measure that. I'm going to give you one of my bonus digital courses. Go to thevisionary CEO catalyst. Get yourself registered, grab the podcast link super easy and please share it with women that you know that are leading in the world. Because I love to be able to impact 20 million women, I know that when women feel more confident in who they are as leaders, it changes who they are in their lives. Let's help women live and lead on their own terms.
Kris Plachy:
I can't wait to see how many clicks we get.
Kris Plachy:
Let's get it.
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