I first heard about this in this NPR story:
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/06/259422776/army-takes-on-its-own-toxic-leaders?sc=tw&cc=share
Here is the take from Army.mil:
http://www.army.mil/article/82622/Ba...ic_leadership/
The people running the US Army apparently believe it has a problem with "toxic leadership", which Army Doctrine Publication 6-22 defines this way:
Quote:
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.
The NPR article references a Center for Army Leadership survey which found that roughly 20 percent of soldiers reported their leaders were what researchers called toxic leaders.
What I found particularly interesting was this bit from the Army.mil article:
Quote:
The survey contained a few surprising and alarming results. It found that toxic leaders accomplish their goals more frequently than constructive leaders, and that toxic leaders are perceived by their peers to achieve
a higher level of leadership responsibility and move through the ranks at a quicker pace.
Since I, personally, have no military experience, I can't say with any authority whether or not this is a story being blown out of proportion by media or not, so I'm interested to hear Bully vets' take. Is "toxic leadership" a problem in the military? If so, has it always been a problem? Both these articles seem to be implying that it's a problem that hasn't really gotten the attention it deserves until recently; do you think that is accurate?