496: Toxic Leadership. This Is How You Spot It. This Is How You Know.
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- This is Jocko podcast number 496 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. - Good evening. - So I get asked a lot of questions for years. Get asked questions about toxic leadership, right? Questions like, what should I do if I have a toxic leader? Or how do you handle the company when there's toxic leadership? That kind of thing. But the problem with the term toxic leadership and toxicity and specifically toxic leadership is that's such a broad term.

And when someone tells me they have a toxic leader, it could mean a whole bunch of different things, even though we kind of all know what it means, right? It means bad leadership. That's what everyone's implying. Well, I found a paper written by an army colonel that was at the army war college. And it's just a paper about toxic leaders and the characteristics of

of toxic leaders and then the types of toxic leaders that they become. And I think it's really, when I read it, it's one of those things how, you know when you get a certain type of car and then you're driving around and you keep seeing that type of car everywhere? Yeah, fully. It's like that, but as you start reading the descriptions of the characteristics and the types of toxic leaders, they're like, oh yeah, oh yeah. And most important, you can check

Your damn self to make sure that some of these traits that are out there aren't in you So let's jump into this paper right here Just to get first give off the credit here. This is the author. This is Colonel Denise F Williams the title is toxic leadership in the US Army and

Kicks off here the extent to which toxic leadership exists in the US Army is a question that demands thorough examination while most publications on military leadership focus on the positive aspects of good leadership this project examined the current literature on destructive leadership styles this paper sought a definition of toxic leadership Consolidated expert views on the personal characteristics of toxic leaders and compiled 18 types of toxic leaders

the project serves as a review of toxic leadership in the u.s army it derives insights into toxic leadership in the army why it exists why it is tolerated and what impact positive leadership may have on this phenomenon so that's what it is that's what it's a paper about but clearly and you're going to see this real quick this ain't just about the army this is about any type of then not just the military but any type of organization that exists in the world

And that's another crazy thing is people think that because someone was in the military, they were a good leader. And because they were an officer, they were a good leader. Because they were a commander, they were a good leader. Or a colonel, they were a good leader. Or a general, they were a good leader. Or an admiral, they were a good leader. It doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't mean that at all. There's absolutely horrific, toxic leadership at every level of the chain of command. And of course, there's a bunch of great human beings as well. But we're talking about the toxic ones right now. So...

I don't want to make it sound, that kind of opening makes it sound toxic leadership's everywhere.

It's common, but it's not the preponderance, right? So it starts off, Army leaders must set high standards, lead by example, do what is legally and morally right, and influence other people to do the same. They must establish and sustain a climate that ensures people are treated with dignity and respect and create an environment in which people are challenged and motivated to be all they can be. Cool. There you go. U.S. Army Field Manual 22-100-106.

about what solid leadership is. Solid leadership is the cornerstone of a successful military. The US Army absolutely depends on it. What happens, however, when that solid leadership turns out to be solidly bad?

What happens when leadership is so bad that it hangs over an entire organization like a toxic cloud that suffocates everything and everyone that it comes in contact with? Does this happen in the army? If so, why does it happen? Why does the army tolerate it? Why in the world would the army tolerate toxic leadership? Can positive leadership play a role in eradicating it or mitigating it?

against its detrimental effects. So there you go. There's the setup. Toxic leaders can be characterized as leaders who take part in destructive behaviors and show signs of dysfunctional personal characteristics. To count as toxic, these behaviors and qualities of character must inflict some reasonably serious

and enduring harm on their followers and their organization. So there's like a definition right there that we have to pay attention to. If you're a toxic leader but you have no impact, it doesn't really matter. You gotta have some kind of negative, enduring impact on the organization. The intent to harm others or to enhance the self at the expense of others distinguishes seriously toxic leaders from the careless or unintentional toxic leaders.

I've known quite a few unintentional toxic leaders in my day as well. You know, people that were just, and this paper goes into it. Thus, there are varying degrees of toxicity in this damaging disorder. At one end of the spectrum, dysfunctional leaders may simply be unskilled, unproductive, and completely unaware of the fact that they are lacking in the necessary talent to lead. At the other extreme, toxic leaders will find their success and glory in the destruction of others, be it psychological or even physical,

They will thrive on the damage they can inflict on others. In any case, this toxic leadership plummets productivity and applies breaks to organizational growth, causing progress to screech to a halt. So there's your toxic leadership. Now we get into this whole thing starts off with the personal characteristics. And man, I was kind of got what's the term here?

I kind of got engaged when I started reading this part. Experts have identified a number of characteristics attributable to toxic leaders. The following compilation of traits provides a starting point for better understanding of toxic leadership. Although all of these characteristics are significant, they are listed from the least significant to the most severe. It's pretty cool.

In most cases of toxic leadership, the leader will present not just one, but a combination of traits. Intuitively, the more of these traits the leader displays, the more toxic the leader is considered. Many authors explain these unfavorable traits in terms of psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Maslow categorized human needs into a five-level pyramid and suggested that people move upward as needs at a particular level are met. And we were talking, when we were talking about this on the Underground podcast, I think we were talking about Maslow. The levels start with basic physiological needs forming the base and then ascend through safety, love, and belonging, esteem, and finally self-actualization. So this starts with like food, water,

air, shelter, safety and security. And then it goes up, those are the physiological needs. And then it goes up safety, love and belonging, esteem, and then finally self-actualization. Until needs and desires are met at any given level, the individual cannot progress to the next level. While trustworthy leaders usually operate at a level four or five,

Destructive leaders are still concerned with meeting their safety needs at a level two or possibly their love and belonging needs at a level three. Their behavior indicates that they have not begun to address their esteem needs at level four. This results in many of the following negative personal characteristics. So if you're not feeling safe and secure in your scenario, you got problems. This is why...

What is it? Money is the root of all evil? Yeah. Well, you could take that a step lower and just go like food. You know what I mean? Because if you don't have food, you and I are fighting. Right? If there's only one freaking hamburger and it's just you and me, what's the point?

We're gonna have to fight for that thing. You see what I'm saying? Now listen, we could, and theoretically, we could decide, hey, we know each other. Hey, we'll be able to go out and harvest more hamburgers if you and I work together and we can figure out a system. We'll split this one. But there's also a chance I'm just sticking you in the neck. You know what I mean? And I'm getting the whole burger. Yeah, that feels like a learned thing. Like that thing we're gonna work together. The cooperation thing? Yes, yes. There's definitely some cooperation thing. Yeah, you know. Is learned.

Because you got to kind of teach little kids to share, you know, after they have to be taught that, you know. That's a perfect example, dude. They don't want to share. It's actually instinctual to not want to share even something that you're not using at that time when you're a kid. Like a little kid, there'll be like a toy that they're...

not playing with, someone else will come over and take the toy that they're not playing with and they will stop that individual because that's mine. That's one of the first words kids use. Mine. Mine. Actually, this is how deep that goes. Sometimes...

If you ask a kid what their favorite color is and they tell you blue and then they ask you what your favorite color is and you say blue, they'll be like, no, no, no, that's mine. That's mine. My favorite color can't be yours. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, yeah. That's some instinctual activities. And so much of this insecurity. And look, when I'm talking to people, when I'm working with people and they have an individual that's a toxic individual, so often...

It's coming down to insecurity, right? It's their ego, their insecurity. They don't feel like they get the recognition that they deserve. They don't feel like they're good enough and that's why they want to prove to everyone that they are. So much of this boils down to that insecurity. And look, there's food insecurity. That's a thing. And when you have food insecurity, you're going to do more harsh things when you have food insecurity. You know, if you're walking down, or if an individual has a bunch of money,

and somebody grabs a cup of coffee from or grabs the grocery out of their hand, they might be like, whatever. Whereas if someone doesn't have a lot of money and someone grabs that grocery bag out of their hand and starts running, they're going after them and they're going to beat them to get that thing back. Yeah. And I guess on a technical level, it makes sense because when you say insecure, that means you're just not secure with, I mean, I feel like nowadays anyway,

it's like almost like assumed when someone says, oh, that's just an insecure person. It's almost like they kind of root it automatically in like something that you feel that you should be secure in. Like, I don't know your manhood or your relationship or, or something that's like kind of, kind of frowned upon if you're not secure in it. But technically insecure just means you don't feel like secure in that. So yeah, if like,

food is scarce, you're not going to be secure in that. You know, just like anything is scarce, you're not going to feel secure. You don't know when the next one is coming, so you're just not going to feel secure and it kind of applies to anything. Yeah, but I think you just kind of nailed it when you talked about

There's things that we just when we say so that person insecure we're talking about like their value as a human as perceived by themselves like how do they perceive themselves and Do they have value as a human and if they don't then they're gonna be insecure and that's gonna put them on edge Just like if the food is scarce, they're gonna be on edge when they think their value is Not there. They're gonna be

looking to lash out. Now, this doesn't really start with...

One of these things that's rooted in insecurity the first the first characteristic personal characteristics incompetence incompetence results from the lack of the required skill Capability aptitude that are required to complete the function they may include a failure to understand the mission or task at hand a continued failure to comprehend the problems and issues associated with the task and ultimately a failure to determine the best way to solve problems and overcome issues

- Look, that's just an incompetent person, right? They could be secure, they could be a normal person, but they just don't get it, man. They just have a hard time with it. It could be a technical task, it could be a cognitive task, it could be anything, but they're just not good at it. And maybe they can learn some of it over time, but they're just not there yet. And that's the lowest level, according to this personal character, that's like the lowest level of toxic leadership is you're just incompetent.

Next one, malfunctioning. Leaders who malfunction are focused on their own insecurities and are therefore unable to focus on the mission, organization, or followers. Most of their time, energy, and effort are spent on themselves, leaving little attention or interest for anything else. Not only does the leader malfunction, so does the organization. So this person's focused on themselves. So obvious to everyone, by the way.

That's malfunctioning. Now we get maladjusted. Leaders who are viewed as maladjusted are insecure about their own accomplishments, often with good reason, having avoided the personal risk, discipline, and hard work needed to succeed in earlier circumstances. They are maladjusted to their surroundings, their position, their organization, and certainly to their followers.

So they know that they don't really belong there. They didn't work hard enough. They didn't take the risk that was necessary. They didn't put the discipline into their world. And so they know that and they feel insecure about that. And they're gonna cause problems. And that rolls right into the next one, sense of inadequacy. Similarly, all toxic leaders have a deep-seated sense of inadequacy. The sense, and that's important. This says all toxic leaders.

have a deep-seated sense of inadequacy. The sense of inadequacy may be based on either real or perceived chinks in the armor, but nonetheless, the self-doubt is ever-present. In its most extreme form, this self-doubt can bring about a leader who only feels competent when destroying others.

Oh, that's so freaking fitting. So again, now when these inadequacies and this insecurity starts to grow, the only way you feel good is by crushing someone else. Malcontent. The malcontent leader is an extremely bitter leader, an unhappy person, a disgruntled soul who is angry about past failures and determined to make the world pay.

This leader is not satisfied with anything, self, others, circumstances, and displays this dissatisfaction through angry outbursts, rants, and tirades. So one thing that I, it says that they are angry about past failures. And one thing I feel like

It's not just angry about past failures. I think these people can sometimes be upset that they haven't gotten the recognition that they feel that they deserve. So they did something and they think that they deserve the recognition and the glory for that thing and they don't get it and now they get determined to make the world pay for it.

That's sort of the Cain and Abel story, right? Cain did not get the recognition from God and so he killed his brother Abel who got the recognition. That's what it is. Next one, irresponsible. Leaders who possess the characteristic of irresponsibility refuse to answer for their actions. They have reckless disregard for the costs of their actions to others as well as to themselves. They see no need to do what is right because they see no penalty for doing what is wrong.

I actually put the irresponsible one kind of like lower down in my mind. Someone that's incompetent. Those two are like, I would go incompetent and then irresponsible. Like you ever work with someone and they just do dumb shit. And you're like, bro, you can't do that. And they're like, oh, well, you know, it's literally fits this. You know, they see, they see no, no need to do what is right. Well, I didn't do that. Well, it's going to take too long. You know, they're like that type of person. I view irresponsible. And look, responsibilities are,

Incredibly important obviously this is what extreme ownership is all about right? That's like the top of the of the jam. Mm-hmm But when someone is irresponsible and by the way when we wrote the book extreme ownership There's a lot of people in the world that don't take ownership. It's very common It's a very common trait to blame other people so that's why to me It's just like a common trait that people are just irresponsible and and they just go. Oh, well, no, I think you're a

Hey, why are you late? Echo Charles. You know what I mean? He's like, well, 10 minutes. What? You know what I mean? It's one of those things. They're just or like, hey, hey, wait, you know, what'd you do with the SD cards from the recording? Oh, no, we got to do it again. Well, why do we do it again? No, I left him at the I went to Chipotle on the way home. I left and they were gone with it. I think they got thrown in the truck.

You know what I mean? It's just like irresponsible. You know what I also think? I think of the word irresponsible. I think of kids, like 12-year-old, 13, 14-year-old. You know, like that's when I think of irresponsible. So I think this one should be a little bit lower in my mind.

The next step, amoral. A step beyond irresponsible is amoral. Leaders who are amoral are often also irresponsible and see themselves as outside the particular moral code. Not only will they not take responsibility for their actions, but their amorality makes it nigh impossible for them to discern right from wrong. Again, to me,

I still think we're in a zone of people that just don't comprehend. Like it says that they don't discern right from wrong. You ever, you ever, you know, your kid ever do something where they just didn't get why it was wrong. Yeah. You know what I mean? You're like, bro, what are you doing? You can't do that. Hmm.

- You never had your kid do something that you were like, "Hey, what in the hell are you doing?" - Well, my kids are pretty young. - Oh, they're a few years. - Yeah, well, yeah, actually, yeah, my teenager one, yeah, for sure. - You know, they'll think, they'll set fire to something. - Yeah. - Right? A small fire, you know? You know, it's in the backyard, it was only by the fence. - Yeah.

But the fence is made of wood. You know what I'm saying? And, you know, oh, no. I would have put it. The hose was over there. I could have put. No. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm thinking now that you got my mind all working, like there's a few incidents that happened that.

It was just like how you said, where it's like, bro, it feels just in general as a human being that you would know better kind of a thing. Like how you say setting fire to something right next to the wooden fence or whatever. Keeping a stack of papers right next to the stove. Open flame or something like this, right? Where it's real obvious or whatever. But yeah, it's like you kind of understand, oh, their brain is like not quite there yet. So they don't think about the secondary things.

kind of effects given any situation, you know? So it's like, yeah, that's irresponsible. Yeah. There's to me, the irresponsible, the amoral and whatever that was, the first one and the incompetence, they're all kind of like ignorant. They're all kind of a level of ignorance with those where bro, what are you doing? Like you ever had? Well, I've had leaders where I've seen a leader or behave a certain way in front of the troops and pull them aside and be like, dude, what are you doing? Like,

Like everyone's watching you. Well, I didn't think it was that big of a deal. No, it's a big deal. They're all watching you. They're watching you. You know, you walk out of the office with the commanding officer and you got like the look on your face like, oh, fuck that guy. Everyone just saw you do that. What are you doing? Yeah. Actually, I'm just, amoral is like without morality, right? Not like immoral, which is like bad morals or negative, whatever. Amoral. Yeah. Like if you, yeah, like ignorant, like, um,

I guess a lot of it comes down to your value system because like okay, so there's this Frog that exists in the Big Island in Hawaii and they're - they're a menace and they make these little frogs. Are they Indigenous to the island. No, they're an invasive species exactly right and they're kind of loud So some people they'll just like catch them and then just kill them like stomp them and kill them, you know so that

sometimes I guess it depends. Like if you're not attached to a very specific value system, maybe like, oh yeah, the thing is just loud. So let me just kill it. You know, there's nothing really wrong with it just because I haven't really thought about it or, you know, but yeah,

that's like a moral, like I'm not doing it cause I'm angered angry with necessarily their existence is just, oh, it's bothering me. Here's the solution to that. I'll just kill it. So it won't be croaking or whatever. You know what I'm saying? More so than, you know, I'm going to kill every freaking frog cause I'm angry at it or whatever. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's like an ignorance thing. It feels like. Yeah. And the ignorance there would be like, well, it's a life. You know what I mean? Like you're treating, well, if you would kill this frog, which you don't, and look, if you didn't know it, is it,

it's an invasive species and it's harming the rest of the ecosystem and all that. No, just like this thing was making noise so I killed it. Right. Yeah, that's different. Like that value system which can go either way by the way. Like you could be like, hey, look, it's taking a life and you know, that's wrong given like, you know, my beliefs and my morals or it could be like, hey, no, there's a big picture here and certain like, you know, ecologies have to function a certain way or whatever. You know, like, you know, they do it with like pigs sometimes. What's the, you know, when they kill the pigs because there's too many of them. It's like you got to, you got to,

Control the population. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you got to do more than that with pigs. Yeah. So it's like that's different because there's thought put into it. You know, it's like the amoral is like, no, it's not neither right or wrong. I don't think about that kind of stuff. It just is. And I'm trying to solve this immediate problem. There you go. Boom. Kill it. Next is cowardice. Then this is a big jump. Big jump to cowardice.

Cowardice in a leader is about much more than a simple lack of physical courage as on the battlefield. It is about a lack of resolve, determination, and steadfastness in times when tough decisions must be made. It is about being unable or unwilling to make tough decisions. This type of leader does not recognize this weak point and is therefore not able to make necessary change. Yeah, this is just someone that's just backing down continually.

and not standing up and doing the right thing. And then that, again, this is a little bit of a strange progression here. It goes insatiable ambition. It goes from cowardice to insatiable ambition. While ardent ambition may qualify as positive personal characteristic for a good leader,

Insatiable ambition does not a leader who has an unquenchable desire for power prestige money Success and glory will obviously do whatever it takes to satisfy that desire at any cost It may mean compromise of operation organization people or all of these this leader will put ambush ambition above all else so we just jumped to me and

You're just going from like, hey, the dude's a coward, but you know what? Like, hey, you won't make a call, but we can step in and make a call. Or, hey, he's doing something that doesn't make sense. We can correct him. Or, hey, he's ignorant about this. So we can. He doesn't know how to do this. He's incompetent. We can. Like, those are all things that are sort of in a category that we can deal with. Insatiable ambition. Now, all of a sudden, we just jumped. Our issue level just jumped up quite a bit. This person is doing whatever it takes.

whatever it takes to satisfy what they want, which is power and glory. And then it goes right into egotism. As with ambition, a healthy ego by itself may not be a particularly negative attribute.

However, egotism in a leader is a dysfunctional trait that can destroy organizations. The leader's exaggerated sense of self-worth, constant focus on self, and inability to distinguish between the real self and the imagined self clouds self-perception and thus limits the capacity for self-renewal. So, you know, clearly this is a huge one.

I think that I would actually flip these. I think there's a person that can have an ego, but they also recognize, you know, like, okay, well...

I can talk to them. I can help them see that in order to help them move towards their egotistical goals, they still need the team to win. But the person with insatiable ambition, that seems like it's stronger than egotism. And again, I'm being semantic about these words, but they are very...

very closely related and clearly things that destroy teams and organizations. Yeah. That I always tried to figure out what's the prescriptive threshold of ego. Like what, where, where does ego have to stop, you know, before it becomes unhealthy? Because just like I said, like a big ego, it technically is good if it's,

quote unquote healthy but then i've always figured okay so what's the diagram what's the what's the thing you know and not only that why why it's difficult for you to figure out where that is because it's different for different situations right but that's a good little description right there where it's like the perceived versus the reality or whatever like kind of a thing like my

Cloud self-perception. Yeah. So if it's like, if it's in line with like reality with the team, that means you got to be really in touch, you know, then it's going to be a healthy ego, no matter how big you see him saying, if you're getting, getting things done and you have high expectations for yourself or for other, you know, that whole thing. Yeah. It's like healthy. If it's in line with the reality of it, I think you just nailed it. If it's in line with reality,

It's fine. When it's out of line with reality, or at least, look, it doesn't have to mirror reality, but it has to reflect reality. That's the difference. Because if I'm an MMA fighter and I'm going to fight, you know, John Jones,

Like, okay, I need to be humble when I'm training to fight Jon Jones. And then when I'm getting in the ring, I'm going to be like, all right, dude, this is Jon Jones. I got a plan. Hey, he might be the greatest ever, but I got a chance. If I can connect with this, if I can get that look, I got to get some confidence going. Oh, yeah, fully. It's not...

It's not closely, you know, at that point in an MMA fight against Jon Jones, it's not very closely related to reality. I didn't pick a good example. But the approach is still sound. A better example would be, let's not say me, but let's say an actual MMA fighter that's going up against the champ. Right? They have a decent chance of beating them. They could do, they could pull it off. Like all these things are good. And they have to be confident. They can't, what they can't be is like, there's no way I can win this. Right. That would be a lack of ego. Right.

And that would cause them to have no chance of winning. Or there's no way I can lose this as well. If they're really believe that, you know, it's like, which we've seen that before in MMA where guys put their hands down or whatever. They joke around crack and all of a sudden they get caught, they get knocked out. So yes, the ego and this ties into something I've been, I've been discussing a decent amount lately. And that is just the self-awareness of knowing who you are,

Jimmy May, when he was on the podcast, he was talking about the fact that when people are going through buds, depending on how they view themselves and what the delta is between how someone views themselves and how the class views them, the bigger the delta, the less chance they have of making it through. So with ego, the further your ego gets away from reality, the worse situation you're going to be in.

Yeah. So it's like a, it's like a form of inflation. So it's like the, the reality of your worth or whatever is the healthy ego zone. Any kind of inflation from there is like the, the, the Delta. Yeah. And you have to, it's weird because in there's certain moments where you have to ego up, this is a, this is a interrogation term, right? Like when I say, dude, you know, when I'm interrogating you and I say, Hey,

you being in charge of all these troops, you must know exactly where they're gonna attack. And you go, you're damn right I do. And then you tell me. Or I ego down, which is like, you don't even know what's happening with your own troops. And you go, yes I do. And you tell me where they are. But you have to do that with your ego in certain situations. Like when you're walking into the cage or you're walking onto the battlefield or you're walking into the meeting,

To present something, you got to ego up a little bit. Yeah. But when you're preparing for the meeting, when you're preparing for the fight, when you're preparing for the battlefield, you got to ego down a little bit. Yeah. So you got to kind of make some adjustments. Perfect addition to the diagram because...

I think that's still part of the healthy ego. It can expand as needed because not too much. Otherwise you go into inflation and it can contract as needed, you know, not too much. Otherwise, yeah, you go into like to deflation, evilness. Yeah. So, and like you're kind of like your muscles, right? Sometimes you get that pop, you know,

look in the mirror, you see that pump, you're like, but that's really your body. That's really your arms or shoulder, whatever you're looking at. You see what I'm saying? It's not always going to be like that, but under certain circumstances, that's really you, homie. You see what I'm saying? And then sometimes you might feel a little bit shriveled or whatever when you're dehydrated or whatever, and that's you too. Yeah. Yeah, good point. But if you don't see yourself realistically in that mirror,

And you start thinking that you're huge and you're entering a bodybuilding contest when you're not there. Or the other end of the spectrum is you don't think... You're not seeing...

how jacked you really are and now you're freaking going on crazy uh tremble own and whatever other steroids you're gonna go on to and you have body dysmorphia yeah so yes so some people might have ego dysmorphia kind of yeah that's it man that's it could go could be one way or the other one

And that rolls right into arrogance. Again, to me, arrogance, I always looked at arrogance as a precursor to egotism and really a precursor to insatiable ambition. And again, maybe I don't understand the words 100% or maybe we just have different understandings. But to me, like a, you know, you can meet a 20-year-old jujitsu kid that's kind of arrogant. You know, he's going to a tournament. He's bobbing his head back and forth. He seems a little bit arrogant. You know, I don't.

I think that seems below like egotism, but here we go. To take this idea of self-worth a step further, leaders who are arrogant

and overly certain of their own superiority to all others are not only consumed by their self-worth, but also by the fact that they are convinced that they can do all things a cut above others. Because of their self-perceived perfection, they cannot fathom making mistakes. This arrogance prevents them from acknowledging their mistakes and instead leads to blaming others for all that goes wrong.

Nothing will ever, nothing will ever be their fault, but they will not hesitate to find and lay blame wherever it is otherwise convenient. Again, like how we, how we break these out, we can do it a bunch of different ways, but this is, you know, this is the opposite of extreme ownership. This is the ego taking over and it's not good.

And see, again, now this next one is called selfish values, which to me is like the even precursor to the precursor, right? Oh, this person's a little bit, like I would call you selfish before I'd call you arrogant, before I'd call you egotistical, right? That's probably the order that I would go. And then I would eventually get to this guy, Echo Charles got an insatiable freaking ambition. Mm-hmm.

Like he's not stuck. That's kind of the mode out. Cause selfish values is like, a lot of people have selfish values. We all have selfish values. Yeah.

Like that little kid that you took my toy, the toy I'm not playing with. Dude, I want that thing. Selfish values. Good leaders are those who genuinely care about the mission, organization, and their subordinates and put those entities before self. Toxic leaders, by contrast, do not develop values that place organizational needs high. The concept of selfish values encompasses more than merely lack of selflessness. It encompasses that notion that the values someone holds are focused excessively

excessively on self. For the most part, values are directed toward the good of others or the good of all. Toxic leaders maintain values that are purely self-centered and self-promoting. Next one up, avarice and greed.

One of the self-centered values results in yet another dysfunctional characteristic of avarice and greed. Those in this category place an inordinately high value on the accumulation of wealth and financial gain. Avarice and greed will take a toll on the organization and the people in it. Check. Again, you know, when you start talking about how people react, you know, the saying money is the root of all evil. Like when you don't have any money,

People do things that they shouldn't be doing. Well, when people are obsessed with money, they do things that they shouldn't be doing. We were having a family talk the other night about the movie The Wolf of Wall Street. Have you seen this movie? Yeah, yeah. Well, what's crazy about that movie is the dude was legit making money. Maybe not in the...

In the most honest of ways, but not illegal ways, which is a huge difference between illegal. And I think Jordan Belfort has said that only 5% of what he was doing was illegal. Maybe it was 20. I don't know. But at a juncture, he was doing things that were legal. They were scummy. They were dirty. They were low morale. Mm-hmm.

but they weren't illegal and he made a lot of money doing things that weren't illegal and then he went out and Just did things that were illegal. Mm-hmm, and you think to yourself damn, dude now look He was also like a total drug addict I think at the time when he was making a lot of bad decisions and and probably his arrogance got him to a point where he thought that he was couldn't get caught yeah, but

It's interesting that someone would make a ton of money and it just ain't enough and they do something illegal to make a little bit more, you know, make more. And risk. There's a certain amount of risk.

ignorance or arrogance when it comes to taking a risk when you start saying oh we'll just do this i get away with this just cut that corner wait we hey we can pump and dump one time with the with this stock yeah which that's what they that they did that they did some illegal stuff and then i mean i don't i forget what's true and what's just the movie but in the movie they set it up like

He could have kind of gotten a slap on the wrist if he walked away from what he was doing, but then he didn't walk. And I, again, I don't know if that's movie talk or if that's the movie to make the movie more epic. Cause let's face it. It's pretty epic when he says, it's pretty epic. But in reality, any human,

That is like, okay, I've made a shit ton of money. I know I've done illegal things. I can just sign this piece of paper, walk away, and go live my life. You can't fathom that there's people that would go, no, I'm not fucking leaving. That's the way things happen. That's greed. And how much is enough? Yeah.

Kind of not because of that thing. There's like a mechanism in your brain that recalibrates stuff. Like the new normal is this. And then now if I fall below it, it's like,

they who is it chris rock i think he had like a comedian uh sorry a stand-up thing and he talked about that a bit a bit yeah yeah where he was like if oh like he's talking about two rich people but one was like way more rich and then he said i forget the names i know oprah was one of them but it was basically like if oprah woke up with

some lesser rich person's money. She'd want to kill herself or something like that. You see what I'm saying? Where it's like, you know, to a normal person, it's like, yeah, having $10 million is like, Oh my God, that's like the dream. Right. Then for a billionaire, $10 million, it's like, that's the end of his life kind of thing because you calibrate the new normal as you, as you kind of go up and it can go into those weird dreamland worlds where it's like,

Sure, you make millions upon millions to the point where you start to be able to get anything that you want. All the way to where it goes, it overflows into like even the legal system in a way, you know, where it's like, oh, yeah, I'll just get a better lawyer. I'll get a team of lawyers and I'm kind of like start to perceive myself as above the law just a little bit.

And the more money I make, the more of that capability. So it's all this weird perception in your brain. And you get there and you stay there for a little bit, maybe a few months, maybe a year, whatever. That's normal. Now, if you fall below, you're like losing. You feel like you're drowning now, you know? So it just sort of recalculates like that.

- The fall. - And then you just need more, just need more. You can either stay where you are or more, you know? But to get this much more, all I gotta do is like make a small adjustment in my ethics, which there's a name for that too, by the way, called ethical fading. Make a small little adjustment. So now I went from unethical to slightly legal, which I'm totally fine 'cause

Slightly above the law. Anyway, it's insane. It's just a one tiny half step at a time Which ties right into this next one lack of integrity lack of integrity on the part of a leader will result in a lack of trust on the part of the followers a lack of trust will cause a good business to lose money good government to lose credibility and good military lose lives

There's absolutely no room in leadership for a lack of integrity. It marks the leader as cynical, corrupt, hypocritical, or untrustworthy, and is both deplorable and intolerable in any leadership situation. And the best definition I've ever heard of integrity is say what I do and do what I say. Like I say what I do and I do what I say. I'm not, if I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it. And if I say I won't do something, I won't do it. And that's the way it is. And if I do something, I will tell you that I did it.

And by the way, I haven't pointed this out yet, but a lot of what I'm reading is just is footnoted. So this this colonel that wrote this, she pulled from a bunch of different sources. And a lot of this is footnoted like an academic paper. So it's not just her opinion. There's there's research behind it. Next one is deception.

Toxic leaders know that lack of integrity, selfish values, insatiable ambition, irresponsibility, and all the other character flaws that they may possess are not acceptable in their role as leaders. Therefore, they must embrace yet another flaw, deception. They must attempt to deceive others about their character flaws and self-serving motives. Knowing they are supposed to care about the organization and its people, they will provide lip service to a sense of concern while their genuine loyalty is to themselves."

They hide their intentions most of the time since their true intentions are socially, morally, and organizationally unacceptable. This constant deceit yields an absolute contradiction to the faith, confidence, and trust necessary for good order within the organization. So one thing that I've always found interesting about this one

the idea that someone can deceive a whole organization is very difficult like when someone is really looking out for themselves, but they're they're giving lip service to the team and the you know I always I think it's very difficult to do. It's very difficult to do that I suppose some people pull it off sometimes and that would definitely make them a very destructive toxic leader but most of the time

- You're looking at them as they're smiling and they're, you know, doing bad things. Next one is malevolent. Malevolence in leadership is the persistent, severe hatred for others that these leaders have in order to counter their own insecurities. They wish for the misfortune of others and then revel in it. They secretly cheer when coworkers, superiors, and subordinates fail, even when the wellbeing of the entire organization is threatened.

And that comes, there's different degrees of this, right? Like when someone gets promoted in another department not competing with you and echoes like, dude, I can't believe they're getting promoted. Or when they get fired or when they get demoted. You know, that's why...

People love that. You know speaking of what you were talking about the writ the Oprah going from you know a hundred million billion dollars to Something bad happens her. Oh everybody likes do that. Yeah. Oh, yeah That's why in the old days the National Enquirer existed remember what that was. Yeah, yeah the National Enquirer or now it's just you know Either TMZ or just gossip, you know drama websites. Yeah, and

well there's like a german word for that because i think it's like i think it's like more natural than we might oh no that's that's that's why this surprises me that it's so high up on the list when i think this is a lot of people yeah but i guess it depends on the degree because i'm sure that this um

What they're saying is if that's the front running quality, you know, kind of a thing where everyone's going to have some of this to some degree, selfish, arrogance, whatever. They're going to have it to the small teeny tiny degree as part of the formula of being a person or whatever. But like this basically taking pleasure in another another person's suffering or whatever is something Freudian. I don't know. It's like there's like a German word for it.

So yeah, I think we all have it to a degree, but yes, a malevolent person is kinda like that's their whole shit. - One thing that, again, I feel like this is a more common thing, but also the reason I'm kinda surprised that this type of thing is so high on the list

Is that even in the definition says they have hatred for others. That's a feeling they wish for misfortune That's like a feeling they they secretly cheer So like this is this is a person that's not really taking action as a leader to undermine or set echo up for you know plant some freakin drugs in your locker at work so you get busted at school you get in trouble like that's

This doesn't talk about the actions, but I guess that's where we get into the next one, which is malicious. Maliciousness takes malevolence a step further. These leaders actually inflict the harm on others they feel such malice towards. Often, whether there is personal gain in it for them or not, rancor, malice, enmity, and spite are the trademark emotions of these leaders, and they enjoy the insult of revenge on others. Yeah.

So I guess I spoke too soon. And the next one is malfeasance.

Finally, haughty, arrogant, and insecure toxic leaders sometimes cross the thin border between unethical or unprofessional behavior and illegal behavior. This can result in malfeasance. Their perceived self-importance has them convinced that rules and laws do not apply to them. That's exactly what you were just talking about. This can result in behaviors that are internally and externally devastating to an organization, especially in the public sector where public trust and confidence are greatly valued.

The worst case scenario occurs when a number of these negative traits are combined in a leader. It is now evident why so many authors use Maslow's hierarchy of needs model. A number of these dysfunctional personal characteristics illustrate the toxic leader's inability to get past low-level survival needs, level three, and in many cases, level two. Then he goes on here, and therefore...

They have issues of insecurity, yearning, sense of loss, fear, obsession, and compulsion. In less extreme cases, the individual may be getting safety needs satisfied, but misses out on the love and belonging needs. This type of leader has feeling of self-consciousness, feelings of being unwanted, feelings of worthlessness, emptiness, loneliness, isolation, and incompleteness. So there you go. Those are the characteristics.

of toxic leaders. Now, the next thing is the types of toxic leaders. What do these people actually do? At first glance, toxic leadership connotes an evil bullying person, but the reality is that toxic leadership can be present in much milder types or in a multitude of types between these two extremes. Recall that

The penultimate of toxic leadership is in the harm done to the organization and the followers. The nature and degree of that harm results helps to characterize the toxic leader type. So the first one is the absentee leader. The absentee leader is detached from the organization and the people he is in charge with

He is only involved in the decision-making, future planning, and program executing because of his physical presence in the organization. He seems to be mindless because his mind is only on himself and obtaining approval of others for himself. So that's the first one, just someone that's not really in the game. Next one is incompetent leader. He may be incompetent due to lack of skill, but may also have careless, dense, distracted, sloppy, or slothful personality.

He may be unable to effectively act and react in times and situations of uncertainty and stress, and he may be unable to successfully communicate his ideas, educate his subordinates, or delegate any authority to his competent supporters. There you go. That's just an incompetent leader.

We see them key last one. There's dealt unable to delegate any authority to his competent supporters because even if you're not quite a competent leader, but you can delegate then you can have other people pick up the slack. You're going to be good to go. I saw that all time. It's still platoons. Maybe the leader wasn't the best. Maybe the chief was the best. Maybe the platoon commander was the best, but he would just delegate and like let the let the boys go the codependent leader.

The codependent relationship is based on the codependent following a harsh set of rules in order to conceal the behavior of the dependent. This results in the emotional repression that creates great stress for the codependent person.

which he then takes into his leadership behavior. He will act and react to the followers in his organization in the very same manner as he does to his, or did to his dependent accomplice. He will take personal responsibility for their substandard performance and make no attempt to correct it for fear of hurting their feelings. He will take on more work and responsibility than is rightfully his and then become very angry with the amount of work that has been pushed on him.

He is a peacemaker who would rather cover up problems than face them in an effort to balance the group's system. The result on the followers and the organization is distrust, uncertainty, and neglect for addressing bona fide, bona fide problems, issues, and the future of the organization. That's like...

People that fuel off a drama, you know what I mean? And they're just like that's the they're just kind of in the game with the drama I always was I was always kind of astounded by relationships, you know, especially when you know when when I was younger and I'm not saying like a kid but like, you know in my mid-20s and you'd see people that were girlfriend boyfriend and

You know, maybe just like fighting and screaming, but then they'd be there the next night fighting and screaming. They'd be there the next night fighting. They're like, dude, what is happening? This does not look like fun to me, but it's fun to them. Yeah. Like that drama. Yeah. It's like you need it. There is this saying, might've been a comedian again. Actually, I think it was long time ago where it's like, he's talking about, he was behind this guy in on the road, right? He's driving behind a guy and it was raining.

And the guy in front of him, there was like, you know how your wheels kick up mud, right? And the mud was going on his windshield. So he put on the windshield wipers. So he was super annoyed that this guy was basically kicking up mud all over his car, all over his windshield, right? So he has the windshield wipers on and he starts to get used to it after a while. His windshield wipers, mud, windshield wipers, mud, right? Sees the car, right? He gets used to it. Then after a while, the car takes the exit.

Or makes a turn or whatever. And he kind of felt like lost without the car. He's like, I kind of liked that. I kind of got used to it. It kind of became my life, you know, kind of a thing where I kind of wanted that mud back on my car so I could wipe it off the windshield. Yeah. The codependent relationship right there. So I'm thinking oddly the way he said it was actually funny. And I was like, oh, that's funny. But then.

When he kind of said it was not funny. No, no, no, no. But when he the way he said it, too, was funny. Yes. But I kind of felt them. I was like, I kind of feel like I know how that feels, you know, where it's kind of like because I feel like this has a lot to do with how life is for a person where in a matter of speaking, it's constantly you sending out signals to the universe. We'll call it externally. Right. You're sending us and then you're getting signals back. And.

And I think it's like that's constantly happening. Right. And sometimes it doesn't even matter whether the signals you get back are good or bad. It's just the fact that they're there, you know. And then sometimes the little formula can be like, hey, I'm only getting bad signals. But for some reason, it's helping me put one foot in front of the other kind of a scenario. And you get used to it.

And then after a while you kind of depend on, what was the freaking movie that he said that? Freaking Shawshank Redemption. You ever seen that movie? Yeah, of course. Freaking badass movie. He called it institutionalized. Institutionalized. He's like, at first you're like, whatever. And then after a while you start to depend on these walls, you know? Where it's like, right, kind of, is that really? Yeah, well, that's why guys would leave the prison and come back. Right. Go get rolled up for something because it was just safe in there. Safe, I know, to expect. Yeah, you get used to it, you know? So it's like,

It's almost like a version, a weird version of like... You ever heard of the most quiet room in the world or something like that? It's called the most quiet room in the world. Is it like literally for sound? Yeah. Yeah. It's like a sound dampening room. And they say that you go crazy or you can go crazy in there. And it's for that reason because...

you know, even me talking and whatever, like these little vibrations that are going out, they're coming, it's coming back to me. Right. So I got, it's always this, I'm sending some signals and I'm getting some back or whatever. If you got nothing, you got a problem. So I would way rather these negative ones than nothing. I don't need positive all the time, you know, but then after a while when you just function throughout your life or in certain circumstances, only getting the negative back. But like I said, you're still tracking, you're still, you're still moving. Right. And then now there's nothing.

I can't deal with it. Give me those negatives back. Give me something. That's the codependent leader. I went into a studio, like a legit, I was doing a voiceover for something and I went into a really nice, I've been into a lot of different little sound studios doing voice recordings and all that stuff. But I was somewhere and I went into a really, really like legit and it had that quality where it,

You had no return. And I was like, yo, this is sick. I liked it. I didn't go crazy or nothing. Yes, people get addicted to that mud going on the window and they become the little solution for it. And it's just a little bit of drama that fuels and keeps the whole system going. Yeah. Right. Got to watch out for that one. I went in on Kauai. There's caves. Sometimes you can explore.

So we went deep in this cave. It was in a place called Mahalapua. It's the beach that you could go down this road. I think they caved in the cave. I don't know. It might still be there. But we used to go visit these caves. And one time, we went deep in, deep, deep, deep, deep. And you could feel the sound just like disappearing. You know how you feel? Like basically that feeling.

And then all of a sudden, you know how you can, it's like you can get this weird subliminal subconscious sense of how big the room is, you know? And all of a sudden it like opened up and I had no idea how big the room was. It could have been like a massive like stadium size room, you know? And it was like, the best way to describe it was impending doom. Like, right. You think like.

Could die right here. It's so unpredictable just my in my physical environment is so unpredictable and that was based on it Was it dark? It was dark completely. Yeah, so you were only relying on the sound. Yeah Micro perception next one

This is one everyone likes to talk about, the passive aggressive leader. The passive aggressive leader has a tendency to resist demands to adequately perform tasks. He has an intense fear of failure and is therefore reluctant to deliver his best performance because it may not be up to the standard and would then result in failure.

If he does too well, it may mean that he will be promoted and then be expected to perform at an even higher level, which could in turn result in failure. His unwillingness to perform well equates to procrastination, dawdling, stubbornness, forgetfulness, and intentional inefficiency.

The passive aggressive leader is impetuous. He will have a sudden outburst of anger or frustration and then immediately be regretful. He will complete his task but then be resentful for having it forced upon him. Followers live on pins and needles, constantly wandering.

Constantly wondering when the next outburst will be and for what reason the organizational response is resistance and aversion on the part of the followers who wish to prevent an outburst under such conditions positive change the organization is near impossible one thing that is interesting to me about that is it's it seems like

It's on its subconscious. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like the procrastination dawdling sudden stubbornness forgetfulness and intentional inefficiency like those things are it says intentional inefficiency I think oftentimes it's unintentional it's people that are

They're passive aggressive for the very reasons that are printed here. The very reasons that they're saying, which is a tendency to resist demands because they're fearing a failure. They don't want to deliver the best because they want to still have something in their back. You're like, oh, I could have done better, but... Or they don't want to get promoted because then they'll have a lot of responsibility. And I think those are...

and therefore these behaviors are subconscious and they don't even know that they're executing these behaviors in my mind. Or at least I've seen a decent amount of passive aggressive. Some of them are conscious of it, sure. Some of them are, but some of them are just, they have that in the back of their head

and they therefore behave this way, they don't even, they couldn't identify. If you said, hey dude, why do you keep procrastinating? They wouldn't be like, if you put a lie detector test on them and said, why are you procrastinating? They wouldn't say, you know what, I'm afraid of actually executing the task 'cause then I might be judged and I'm afraid of failure. No, if you said, why are you procrastinating? They'd be like, well, you know, I would be doing it but there's this other thing and blah, blah, blah. In their heart,

they don't even realize what they're doing. That's kind of my opinion on that. Next one is a good one. The busy body leader. The busy body leader is energetic, restless, constantly in motion and full of unfocused vigor. He may give full focus to one project or topic for a period and then jump to another for no apparent reason, leaving those around him in a confused daze.

He yearns for the spotlight and must be the center of attention. He works long, hard hours, but is unlikely to remain focused on any one given task. He is relentlessly scanning, roving, pressing, talking, traveling, planning, plotting, giving speeches, cajoling, joking, flattering, and working, always working.

or at least making a grand performance of working. The busybody leader is manipulative and firmly establishes himself as the center of information flow in order to further manipulate those around him. He will fail to make decisions that resolve conflicts among subordinates, assuring that the flow of complaints and information about conflicts and therefore attention received will be continuous.

His manipulation, unfocused energy and persistent movement leave the organization bewildered and unclear about where the focus is or should be. And again, in my mind, I don't think this is conscious. I think a lot of leaders that behave this way are doing it as a defense mechanism. They're insecure. They're not quite sure how to win. And so they do all this stuff.

Next is the paranoid leader. The paranoid leader may be brilliant of mediocre intelligence or somewhere in between. He is convinced others are trying to chip away at him, his performance, his leadership, and ultimately his achievements. Regardless of his brilliance or lack thereof, he is completely insecure about himself and his skills and is pathologically jealous of other gifted people. He will not tolerate any variety of criticism because he views it as a personal attack and

an attempt to undermine him and his authority. He will become hostile toward anyone who perceives

who he perceives as trying to undermine him. Despite how innocent or genuine a remark or action might be, the paranoid leader assumes there are hidden intentions behind it. This fear and paranoia drive him to seek total control of everything that takes place in the organization. Excessive staff meetings and reporting are often the result of this need to keep close tabs on those around him. If someone else attempts to exert control or appears to be attempting control in any part of the organization,

organizational activity, he will deal harshly with this individual. In time, followers will learn to be passive and keep all comments, opinions, and observations to themselves. This passivity, along with jealousy and hostility, foster an organization full of fear, anxiety, and trepidation. The only initiative exercised in such an organization is that which the paranoid leader can force through by himself. Scary.

The rigid leader. Man, I wish I would have taken notes when I was in the military about each individual leader and what I saw. The leader... And you know, that's another thing that's interesting is...

You see various levels of each one of these things being there or not being there and complimenting or emphasizing or deemphasizing various characteristics. Because if you've got someone that's very controlling, but they're also wanting to progress, they can help each other sometimes, some of these characteristics. And then sometimes it's just a total disaster. The rigid leader is stiff and unyielding.

and is unable or unwilling to accept new or to adapt new ideas, new information or changing times. As one might expect, rigidness may very well have its place in leadership as determination or steadfastness of purpose, but in the current age of constant change, flexibility has the overwhelming edge over rigidity. The rigid leader is convinced that he is right

and that he is the only one who is right. He is therefore loath to entertain any other opinions. He will surround himself only with followers who thinks as he does so that he does not have to be confronted by conflicting or dissenting opinions. Boom. The controlling leader, very similar to the rigid leader, the controlling leader takes rigidness one step further. This is a perfectionist who craves certainty and surety.

The only way controllers feel they can achieve the certainty and surety that they need is to make the decisions themselves. While the rigid leader will surround himself with like thinkers and delegate certain authorities to those who agree with him, the controller leader cannot and does not delegate. He will be intimately involved in every decision, big or small. The controller leader is process oriented and while...

He does not have a grasp of vision and the future of the organization. He's extraordinarily preoccupied with the processes related to the conduct of daily operations. He is disdainful of people who are not excited or involved in the implementation of efficiency-incurring processes that make everything neatly identified and hierarchical because of the controller leader's rigidity and perfectionism. He...

His followers suffer personal angst and fear because they have no input to the process or the outcomes. The skilled, intelligent followers are stifled while others merely go through the daily motions. All are micromanaged, again leading to absence of positive change. Sounds like a freaking lovely work environment.

The compulsive leader possesses traits of the rigid leader and the controlling leader with a twist. He is similarly rigid but has the need to completely control all aspects of his life and pursues perfection to an extreme, but he also has emotional glitches of which he is probably unaware. He is angry, resentful, and rebellious on the inside and believes it is wrong to express his true feelings. His need to firmly control his own feelings results in his efforts to control everything else.

However, because of the inner turmoil, it is common for such person's repressed anger to be expressed in sudden and violent outbursts. The outbursts and violent behavior contribute to an atmosphere of fear and anxiety among followers. The Intemperant Leader

The intemperate leader lacks self-control. He is unable to abstain from overindulgences and incapable of cautiousness when he overindulges. The excesses may be simple or complex, but they are most always morally questionable.

If the intemperance in private is private in nature, there may be limited organizational consequences, but these overindulgences rarely stay private. When they become public, they also become distractions.

When the behavior is more egregious and enduring as in substance abuse, it is destructive. Thus, a lack of self-control raises questions of morality. If the intemperate leader cannot uphold a personal commitment to himself, his followers realize that his commitment to them and the organization is of little value. The followers become distrustful, disillusioned, and cynical, and the organization ceases to be productive. What's interesting about that one is it shows...

How, when you're in a leadership position, you are being judged by your behavior. Not just your performance at the job, but what else you're doing in your life. And if you don't have good self-control in life, you're going to lose credibility and respect from your team. So keep that in mind. The enforcer leader is subservient and often second in command.

He follows his leader and implements the leaders desires if his leader is not a toxic leader He will be a detailed oriented paper pusher loyal to the boss the organization in the system However, if he does work for a toxic leader, he will become quite toxic himself He wants the approval of his boss and cares only about that approval over that of any of the followers in the organization the enforcer leader may never achieve the principal position in the organization, but he will be instrumental to the success of others and

And the others in question are more often than not toxic leaders. A responsible, non-toxic superior will probably recognize the enforcer leader and remove him from the organization. The enforcer leader's impact on an organization is doubly damaging because his behavior has enhanced and multiplied that of the primary toxic leader. Yeah, ran into some of those dudes along the way. I can tell you that much. The narcissistic leader.

For the narcissistic leader, the world revolves on the access of self and is driven to succeed by a need for admiration and acclaim. Although self-absorbed, he lacks self-esteem. Although deeply ambitious, he feels inferior. Although he desires to be great, he's unable to take pleasure in his accomplishments because he wants more.

His lack of self-esteem, feelings of inferiority, and inability to value his own success as a result in mistreatment, manipulation, and exploitation of others, all for the sake of his own self-worth. The narcissistic leader is so confident that he is the best and only one who can do things that he does, he is unable to recognize that others are capable of performing to his standard. He leaves his followers feeling inferior and doubtful of themselves. He leaves the organization longing for recognition.

Check. The narcissistic leader followed by the callous leader. The callous leader is uncaring and unkind and dismissive of others' needs, wants, and wishes. He is arrogant, patronizing, unpleasant, abrasive.

often hot-tempered he demands his demands are not only unrealistic but delivered in near abusive manner Perhaps most distasteful aspect of the callous leader is the one at his core He enjoys his reputation of being harsh and abusive. That's a freaking interesting, right? That person that's like yeah, you're damn right. That's how I roll I'm hardcore

He takes pride and pleasure knowing that his followers fear and cower before him. His effect on his followers is a degraded self-image and diminishes morale. Next, the street fighter leader, perhaps alluring. The street fighter leader is egotistical yet charming, and he maintains a competitive vision of winning at all costs.

He is good to those who are loyal to him and can help him with his wins, but he can be brutal to those who disagree with him or offer a dissenting opinion. He tends to build gangs of supporters and then uses the gangs to fight the battles he feels he must win. Accordingly, if there are dissenters in the organization, they will be ostracized from the gang and duly punished. He will define himself by how much he wins and by how big his empire grows. At the root of his egotism and competitive nature,

is his unyielding need to be the one in charge. This unwavering need to be dominant produces power struggles when challenged. The street fighter leader has a strong sense of inadequacy, which drives him to prove himself to all those who he sees as superior to him. Although the street fighter leader might be productive leader who achieves short-term goals, it is at the cost of a cooperative and open organization where varying ideas can be exchanged.

It is his unwavering belief that he is right and that support for him is right for the organization that allows this toxic leader to attract and manipulate organizational gang members. Ultimately, this can destroy the morale of the organization. Yeah, that's a more common. And again, the SEAL teams is filled with great freaking leaders, but there's also plenty of them that fit into this category. This is a pretty common category.

like military type leader, especially in the SEAL teams where you have that opportunity to kind of build little gangs and be like, oh yeah, this is what we're doing. And it's also, I've talked about this before, but the fact that you're only gonna be in charge for two years, you're in charge for two years in the military, most military, in the SEAL teams for sure, you're in charge for like two years. And so for two years, you can get some freaking great results and then you leave.

And the guys are miserable, but they still work hard because they're freaking team guys and they still get the job done. But they're miserable. But then you're gone and you got the job done. So guess what you're getting? Promoted, boys. There's something else that caught me about that. Yeah. It's like this person, you have to have, especially at the lower levels, you got to be able to make shit happen, right? Mm-hmm.

It's like a super positive quality to make shit happen But then once you're once your organization grows to a point where you can no longer make shit happen by yourself And you have to use decentralized command. That's a transition that not everyone can make Because it feels good. I made this happen. I did this I did that I did something else and everyone knows that I did it That's a big ego hit

When all of a sudden it's like, well, the team did it and I didn't really get my hands on that and I didn't actually do that thing. I'm still overall in charge, but you know, Echo actually did the thing and it can be hard for people to make that transition. That's why, you know, you see like a company, like a, like a company, like a startup will grow under that CEO, that the founder and he's making things happen, getting things done. And then as it grows,

At a certain point, he's still trying to operate the same way when you can't operate. Now, you could do that when you had nine people in the organization. You could just freaking, hey, everyone come in tonight. We got to get this shit done. Boom. And you can make that happen. That's an admirable quality. But at a certain point, you grow enough that doesn't work anymore. Just does not work anymore. That's centralized command and it doesn't work. And part of centralized command is...

That idea of I need to make this happen and I kind of like making it happen. I like it. It feeds my ego. It feels good. I know I'm the man. The whole team looks at me when I show up and they know that I got it done. Boom. So to go from that centralized command where you and your ego get all the credit to decentralized command, that trips people up, jams some people up as they say. Yeah. It feels natural that...

you know, I'm always searching for like, what the hell? Like, why are we compelled to do this or feel this or whatever under whatever circumstance? So I think that a lot of, especially men, it's almost like everything's rooted in feeling useful, you know? Like the idea of being accused of being useless is very insulting, you know? That is a common value. It's not a 100% value, but it is very common. I feel like that's kind of either...

at the root or near the root of stuff. Yeah, yeah. There's like an insult thread commonly used. You useless piece of shit. Right? Yeah, yeah, sure. There's a reason that exists. You're right. So it's a common thing. You're freaking useless. That's another thing. Yeah, that. So yes, it is certainly an insult to tell someone they're useless. Yeah. And especially in a situation where there's a job to do, you know, collectively or whatever. So...

Think about if you're, I don't know, I'm gonna use you guys terms right now. You're an operator. You're pulling the trigger. You're going on the missions. You're doing that stuff and you've been doing it for so long and been successful, by the way.

So now you feel the opposite of useless. You feel useful. You feel like you're kind of one of the ringers, really. And that's the standard of feeling for yourself, you know. And then, yeah, you make that jump. And then now you're not doing all the things that you've grown accustomed to fulfilling that feeling of usefulness. You're doing something else. And in fact, since it's new a lot of the time, you kind of feel left out.

So now you feel left out. You're not doing the stuff that fulfills that anymore. So yeah, you feel kind of useless. And then not to mention, if you have other insecurities, other people other than you are getting the recognition for the stuff that you know that you are good at. So yeah, man, that's going to, as you said, that might jam you up. It's going to make you feel really uncomfortable.

That's for damn sure. And you got to fight through that. And you have to fight through it or you have to just be aware that, hey, I'm elevating above that position and I need to move up into the next position. That's what I need to do. And there's, that's what you need to do. Yeah. And if you don't want to do that, then stay down in the weeds. It is what it is, but I understand because

Yeah, I think yes, if you're aware of it and if you can recognize, this is what I learned a long time ago, if you can recognize the short game and the long game being played and the big picture and small picture...

They're like dimensional, you know, if you can understand that like deeply, I think you'll be all right. You're going to be all right. If the less you understand that, the more you will not be all right. Because, okay, so, you know, you know, like an organization, right? And someone gets like some award or something like this. And then someone will say that kind of the, for lack of a better term, like this,

It's not a cliche because it's real, but the obligatory like, hey, everyone had their role in this thing. And meanwhile, they have this big, shiny, golden award. Right. But no, no, no. Everyone played their part. Right.

If you really understand that, then that'll mean something. But a lot of times it doesn't come off like that on the surface. It's like, wait, what do you mean I played my part? Well, I was obviously insignificant because you're over there standing with the big award. I'm not. I don't even have part of that award.

You get this better word is like half the size of you. And I literally have zero, you know, nothing to show for it kind of a thing or to be recognized or whatever. So it's kind of like, wait a second. I know you said that, but apparently my role wasn't that important compared to yours. See what I'm saying? But if you don't understand that, that's what it's going to feel like, you know?

Like your whole being is feeling that now. That's your job now. Yeah. To be underappreciated, underrecognized. That's a good job to have. The way that you used to. If you can frame it correctly in your brain. Yeah.

The corrupt leader, power and greed motivate the corrupt leader. He will lie, cheat, or steal to fill his need for money and power. The lying usually feeds the need for power, while the cheating, stealing feeds the need for money. It's clear to the followers, which is interesting. This even talks about money, because you've got to get pretty high up. I guess there's military things that can happen that involve money, but there's not a lot of them. I guess you could be giving...

buying a weapon system and getting a kickback from like the company, you know, you, I, I guess that, but that's, there's not a lot of money that changes hands in the military. You know what I mean? There's just not, it's just, you know, it's just, there's just not a lot of money that changes hands, but, uh, or, or even, you know, like gain material gain, uh,

You know, there's not a lot of material gain to be had. Like maybe you get issued like an extra set of camis. You know what I mean? Like, you know, you could, you know, pull a fast one to make that happen. But in the civilian sector, there's definitely more of that because that's what drives the civilian sector. So the lying usually feeds the need for power while the cheating, stealing feeds the need for money. It's clear to the followers that the corrupt leader will put his own needs and desires ahead of theirs. It's a matter of self-absorption

Similar to that of the narcissistic leader and reminiscent of ignoring the needs of others characterized by the callous leader. The corrupt leader steps further into the immoral, unethical, and often illegal realm. Eventually, the corrupt leader is found in a labyrinth of deceit. Whether it is for power or money, the corrupt leader cannot be trusted and when subordinates and followers know this, the organization suffers. The insular leader.

While those in the inner circle of the insular leader may not suffer directly from his actions, there is a cost to others. The insular leader separates himself and his organization from everyone else and then utterly disregards the health and welfare of those not in his organization. Careful that one. Insular leadership may be observed primarily in the political arena where national boundaries are apparent and leaders may have a tendency to protect their own constituents above all else. Check.

And then there's the bully leader.

The bully leader is pugnacious, bitter, intensely angry at the world and vehemently jealous of others who outperform him. The bully leader has needs to put others down, to invalidate others, and to devastate others. In addition to taking pleasure in his abusive behavior akin to that of the callous leader, for the bully leader, hurting others is the main goal. He will invalidate others in order to validate himself. He will boast about his contributions, whether valid or not.

He appears to be confident in himself and his abilities, but in reality is terribly fearful that others will find out how incompetent he is. The bully leader is prone to ranting and outbursts, particularly when such actions may degrade and humiliate someone. In his mind, this makes him appear to be powerful and in charge. He will make threats and instill fear in others in order to establish an environment that gives him an advantage. If people fear him, he will have more control.

However, the bully leader is secretly a coward and will back down when seriously challenged. He will then linger in anticipation of the right time to exact his revenge on the challenger. The bully leader is mean, pure, and simple, and the influence he has on the organization and his followers is nothing less than devastating. His goal is to hurt others, and he does exactly that. The positive side of the bully leader is that he will probably not last forever.

His bitterness, anger, and vindictiveness make it difficult for even close associates to continue their support. Such leaders will have a lasting effect on those they brutalize even after departure. The bully leader, yelling and screaming and cutting other people down. And then we've got the last one, the evil leader. And this is like a serious escalation, right? When the bully's leader becomes evil,

When the bully leader's brutality becomes physical to the point of committing atrocities, he becomes the evil leader. For the most part, the evil leader is found in the political arena in form of the evil leader of a nation. While the study of toxic leadership certainly invites the question of the role of followers in creating and harboring the toxic leader, this is especially salient in the case of the evil leader. This leader...

And at least some followers commit atrocities. They use pain as an instrument of power. The evil leader must have evil followers to remain in a position of authority. There will also be bystanders who take on the role of followers. The only way, the only way such leaders can be stopped or at least slowed is by followers who are willing to take them on.

It will have to be the bystanders who gain strength in numbers, a collective power, and are not part of the evil followers who must intervene. So we just escalated to freaking Hitler and Stalin and Mao. So there you go. That's the evil leader.

Fast forward a little bit here. It seems that when most people experience toxic leadership in the military, they assume that their situation is an anomaly. They assume that their toxic leader is just one person in the thousands who slipped through the cracks and made it to a leadership position without qualifying skill set to be a leader.

They assume that the army generally knows and grows and promotes good, conscientious, trustworthy leaders, and that if a bad one slithers through, it's without question outside of the norm. They assume it is their bad fortune to cross paths with this irregular abnormality. They are wrong. Although it would not be correct to assume that toxic leadership is running rampant in the ranks, it is unquestionably more prevalent than just a few bad seats. And that is true.

It's not the overwhelming, but you'll run into them for sure. For sure. And not just in the Army. You'll run into them in the Navy, in the Marine Corps, in the Air Force, in the Coast Guard, in the Border Patrol, in the Police Department, in the Fire Department, in the corporation that you work at, in the freaking volunteer group that you're a part of, the charity that you... You know what I'm saying? It's like everywhere. Yeah.

And it's a different varying degrees of impact. Sometimes it's like that low, you know, that low level toxicity doesn't kill you. It makes you kind of sick, makes you feel bad. You know, we were joking the other day that I had like mold in my house. You ever heard of that? Yeah, I heard of that. Yeah. Like we, we, we weren't really too concerned about that growing up. Yeah. But we had just mold. Yeah. And I'm talking about me.

Like we had mold in the room, like my son's room just had black mold growing up the wall, visible. But, and he was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. And he said like, oh yeah, I think he had a stuffy nose for a while. Yeah. But just black mold growing up the wall. Yeah. I mean, there's a difference between, um,

and intolerable. - Yeah, apparently he made it tolerable. - Yeah, so like something can be annoying, junk, not ideal, blah blah, it can be all of this thing, but as long as it's within the tolerance. - So that's an important thing to remember about toxicity and toxic leadership, is toxic leadership can just give you like a low level stuffy nose, right? Or it can just be a full on cancer that eats you from the inside. So that's a sure thing there.

Why does toxic leadership happen in the U.S. Army? The investigation into toxic leadership in the military should include a close look at why it exists and why it appears to be so prevalent in the military. I think it goes back to that book, The Psychology of Military Incompetence. People that look at the military from the outside and go, oh, cool, everyone will have to listen to me when I put this rank on. I'm going to go in there. That is a personality that goes in.

They say that about some police, right? Some police that want to have that authority, get that gun and the badge. You're going to have to listen to me. You're going to have to respect me. Is that all cops? Of course it's not all cops. Is it some? Yes, it is.

So some of it is who is attracted to these type of organizations, right? But the weird thing is like I said charities and like weird hippie like hippie Colts, you know, they have some weird freaking crazy toxic leadership in a hippie cult people are talking about You know playing drum circles and there's you know smoking ganja and there's like a toxic leader in there. That's doing crazy shit. I

You know what I'm saying? Yes, I do. So even though it doesn't matter, these things are like human traits that reveal themselves sometimes. Back to the book. The simple answer is that toxic leadership reflects an aspect of human nature, which is what I just said. As discussed earlier, humans fall victim to a series of hierarchical needs. Recall that Maslow points out that the needs at the lowest level must be met before advancing to the next level.

Unfortunately some humans struggle with getting these needs met and that's that I think is such a huge piece of it Is when you get a really good leader and you know, this is something the book the dichotomy of leadership that I wrote It's like you have nothing to prove but you have everything to prove a really good leader doesn't feel the need to prove anything You know They just when I think of general McFarland Colonel McFarland when I work for general McFarland in Ramadi and

Could see that he didn't have anything that he was trying to prove wasn't trying to prove that he was in charge He wasn't trying to prove that he was the highest-ranking guy He wasn't trying to prove that it was his brigade like you didn't catch any of those vibes from him His open mind and like hey, yeah, I it was more like it Yeah, I guess I am the guy that's gonna be making a decision. But what do you think type attitude? I

And when you see really good leaders, they just don't have anything to prove. And when you see bad leaders, they have more to prove. And the more they have to prove, generally speaking, the worse leader that they're going to be. And some of that comes with hopefully maturity. And some of it comes from where you kind of view yourself. Like for me, I think I was always calibrated.

To where I was and I always felt like I was doing a good job at what I was doing and I felt like I fit there Right, I was never like I should be in charge of these mother You know, I wasn't when I got to a SEAL team. I was like dude I made it I was kind of stoked that I made it and then you know I was a new guy and I was like I was like a good new guy Was I the best new guy? No, I wasn't the best new guy was that was the worst new guy No, but I was like I was good. I was a good new guy and I

I saw myself as a good new guy. I didn't see myself as a best new guy. I didn't see myself as the worst. I saw myself as I was. And then I was a one cruise wonder. And when I was a one cruise wonder, I was, I viewed myself as a good guy that has one deployment under my belt. And now I'm a one cruise wonder, which is kind of a funny thing, but because we think we know everything, but obviously we don't know. You know, I kind of, I kind of saw myself in a realistic way and I didn't have,

some visions, right? I didn't have some, some, my ego was somewhat aligned with the reality of the situation. Yeah.

And that continued, you know, when I was in training cell. I was in training cell. You're kind of in a position of authority. It's still team one. You know, three deployments under my belt, whatever. Peacetime deployments to like on a ship, driving around, drinking. But, you know, that's what we're doing. So I had three of those deployments. Now I was in training cell. I was in training cell. I wasn't like...

"You're damn right I'm in training cell. "You better listen to me." But I was like, "Oh yeah, I'm in training cell. "Yeah, that's kind of where you end up "after you do a few deployments. "And I know some stuff about this. "I can help you." Right? By the way, and there were some times where I was harsh for sure, but you know what it reminds me of is in jujitsu. In jujitsu, when someone is better at you than jujitsu, when I explain to people like, "Oh, when you start jujitsu, "you're gonna get beat by everyone."

It doesn't make someone a better human being than you when they beat you at jujitsu. What it means is that they've trained more than you have. This is like, this is like belts, you know, probably up to black belt, honestly. Now look, you get someone that's a, that's a hyper awesome athlete and they're training five hours a day. Like, okay, they're going to beat you because partially because they're training five hours a day and partially because they're, uh,

Badass athlete and at some point, you know some people that will beat you It's just because they're a better athlete than you are you've been training longer than them and they beat you because they're a better athlete That's one that that does happen in jiu-jitsu. It does happen But my attitude was like yeah, you know this person is beating me like when I was a purple belt get beat by a brown belt Dude, I didn't think dude. There's so much better than me as a human. My literal thought was they've trained more than I have and

And so when I was in training cell at SEAL Team One, I wasn't like, you're damn right, I know this shit and you don't. It was like, no, I've actually just been here for seven years right now. I've done three back-to-back deployments. I was a radio man. I know how to work the radio pretty good. I wasn't like, you're a freaking idiot that you don't know this. And so I think that when you have your position in your situation, in your head is all kind of co-located. Mm-hmm.

And it's not like, I should be running this shit. The minute that you have that, you start to have problems. And the opposite is true as well, which is if you don't think you should be there, if you lack confidence, that could be a problem as well. No, but it's like, I did three platoons. I squared away, squared away comms guy, squared away radio man. Okay, cool. I can teach how to use a radio. Oh, I can teach how to do an IAD. I can teach how to clear a room. Like that's what we're doing. Cool, I can do that. I just did three deployments. Cool. Not I'm better than you.

Just like I know more than you at this time. And you will learn the same stuff that I've learned and you'll be the same as me. So I think that is very important from a leadership position and not being toxic is that it's well calibrated between where you are in reality, where you see yourself.

Those things are very important that they're in the same zone. Because if they're not in the same zone, you got problems. When you say you have nothing to prove and everything to prove, everything can prove nothing, that's one of those ones that

When you hear it, you're like, oh, bro, I get it. I understand. Like, I understand. But at the same time, you're like, wait a second. So how do you format that if you had to explain it? Because maybe someone wouldn't understand, even though it seems pretty clear. You just saying that, even though it sounds kind of confusing on a certain level. But so like, it's almost like this is me trying to figure it out right now. Real time. Real time. Try to figure it out where you have like the needs and requirements that

and actually even kind of the wants of a certain position in a group. And then you can, if you fulfill that. So if you fulfill the needs, that's good. If you feel fulfill the needs and the wants, that's good. Anything outside of that is counter. Now it goes into the negative. So if you want like, okay, if you're, you know, if you listen, you do all these things that are like wanted, but not necessarily needed.

Actually, that wanted and needed to be kind of the same thing. But anytime you go like extracurricular as far as the roles and requirements, it's counter. So it'll make you a worse team member, kind of no matter where you are when you think about it.

- When you say extracurricular, what are you talking about? - Like extra, so if you're like, okay, you have nothing to prove but everything to prove, right? So if it's like, hey, you have, basically you have to, we're gonna put you in this position. Are you gonna maintain the integrity of the team? You know, to a certain degree, essentially. Now, if you have something else to prove on a personal level, now you're deviating from maintaining the integrity of the group. - Yes, yes, and in fact,

What the main thing that you have to prove is that you don't have anything to prove right the main thing? So with a minute I say hey I could do it like this the minute that I impose and prove to you that I'm the guy in charge I already blew it because I proved that I have something to prove right so the main thing the thing that you have to prove is that you have nothing to prove and how do you do that by not trying to prove anything

And by proving that you have nothing to prove, you prove that you're a good leader, that you're gonna listen, that you're gonna have an open mind, that you're gonna take input. That's what you're proving by not trying to prove anything. So those are the kind of leaders that are exceptional.

So you're a surfer, right? Yeah, indeed. No doubt about it. You ever watch the... There's a movie called Forgetting Sarah Marshall. You ever seen that? Negative. This is one part where he's... I've never heard of it. This is a really good one, by the way. So he was telling... He was teaching the guy how to surf. And he's like, hey...

He's like, no, no, no, you're doing too much. Do less. And you know how you do the surf lesson, you do it on the sand first. So he's like, okay, pop up. And he pops up all aggressively. He's like, no, no, no, you're doing too much. Do less. And he does it again. He's like, no, no, no, you're still doing too much. He wasn't a very good teacher, but.

there was some wisdom in here and he's like no no do do less do nothing and he doesn't pop up well you got to do something you see what i'm saying so he's saying like do nothing do less but no that you do have to do something but where that something is you can't do more than what the something that's required to do that thing you know what i'm saying that's what it sounded like when you explain that that reminds me when i'm when i'm coaching jiu jitsu and like a new person

And I'm telling them to relax. They're like, I'm freaking relaxing. I'm like, relax harder. Exactly, man. Exactly. Continuing on here, this is about why toxic leadership exists. Some struggle, some human struggle with getting the basic needs met. They get delayed at a certain level of development and are never able to move on.

If this is at level two, the level of safety or level three, love and belonging, the result may be low or no self-esteem. Nearly every type of toxic leadership previously defined has self-esteem concerns as its root, rooted in low self-esteem.

Some of these people make it into the army and into leadership positions. Another reason may be the inherent paradoxical nature of military leadership. A review of some toxic leadership types reflect some desired qualities of military leadership. Yes, this is the dichotomy of leadership, right? Unlike some milder traits and types such as incompetence, malfunctioning, inadequacy, or absentee,

Many more of these severe traits and types such as busy, rigid, in control, enforcing, confident, street fighter may be characteristics the army values in a leader.

It is the extent to which these characteristics are applied that represents a problem. And again, this is the balance of the dichotomy of leadership. Because do you want someone that's busy and hardworking as leader? Of course you do. Do you want someone that's in control? Of course you do. Do you want someone that enforces things? Yeah, of course you do. Do you want someone that's competent? Yes, of course you do. Go overboard with any of those things and you got a problem. In moderation, these features may be seen as good as acceptable. In extreme, they are toxic.

For the most part, these toxic military leaders tend to do little in moderation and do most everything in the extreme. Inadequate development is another cause of toxic leadership. Mentoring is a critical aspect of army leadership. Officers are taught at an early age to find leaders to emulate. Junior officers are advised to observe and emulate older senior successful officers to determine what they have done to be successful. If there were no existing toxic leaders, there would be none to emulate. However, since there are toxic leaders, it is inevitable that toxic leadership will be replicated.

It will continue to propagate because it is seen as some as a pathway to success that there's no doubt about that. You used to be able to tell, like you'd get some guy that was a platoon chief and he'd be like a freaking tyrant. You go, Hey dude, who's your first platoon chief? And they'd tell you, be like, oh, Jack, or get some officer that's an idiot or an egomaniac. You'd be like, Hey, who's your first platoon commander? Who's your first skipper? And they'd tell you, be like, cool. It all transferred right on down the pipe. Yeah.

Why is toxic leadership tolerated in the U.S. Army? Let us now address the difficult question why toxic leadership is tolerated if not promoted in the U.S. Army. Perhaps the most obvious reason, albeit disturbing, is that toxic leaders seem to get the job done at least in short term. Yes, that is true, unfortunately. And I think the main reason why toxic leadership exists in the Army is because of that two-year thing. You can freaking put up with an idiot for, like, you don't even, it takes you a few months to realize that they're, how bad they are.

Because you're like, oh, we'll teach him. We'll mentor him. I'll build a relationship with him. Let's start figuring out. And you think it's going to be okay. And then by the time you're done with your workup, you're getting ready to go on deployment. This dude's a freaking idiot. But if we fire him right now, the other platoon is going to get the good missions. So we're just going to keep our mouth shut. We're going to keep doing what we're doing. And you go out. He acts like an idiot, but it doesn't matter. You've got the boys. You boys get the mission done. Now this guy's getting promoted. So I think it's that short two-year thing.

Their superiors are either oblivious to toxic behavior or more likely they're so satisfied with the results in terms of mission accomplishment that they choose to overlook the human cost of getting the job done. What effect does positive leadership have? If toxic leadership can be identified, can it be cured? If superiors and senior leaders take appropriate action, perhaps they can mitigate the negative effects of toxic leadership. The appropriate action on the part of the superiors is good leadership itself.

Leading mentoring training and educating in a responsible honest non-toxic manner Maybe the best way to combat this phenomenon of toxic leadership in the US Army Perhaps if toxic leadership is not rewarded by the system superiors in the army that perhaps will cease to be prevalent The hard thing about that is a lot of those when someone has a big ego. It's really hard to coach him It's really hard to mentor It's really hard to teach him because they already think they know everything and that is a problem when when when when there's a

a difference between how you and I see each other and I see myself as, even if you're my boss, but I see myself as kind of technically, you're my boss on paper, but the reality is I'm kind of superior to you in kind of a bunch of different ways. Whenever you're mentoring me, I'm kind of like, oh yeah, sounds great, sir. I really appreciate that advice, but I'm not listening to a damn thing you say. So when you have a big ego, you're not getting coached, you're not getting mentored, you're not gonna unlearn your toxic traits, unfortunately.

And then here's the closer here. Conclusion and recommendation, toxic leadership exists in the US Army and the Army seems to tolerate it. While it is unlikely that toxic leadership can be eliminated, better identification and further study on the part of the Army could very well reduce its persistence and temper its negative effects. As revealed in this paper, there are a number of personal characteristics and types of toxic leaders. All of them can be found in the ranks to varying degrees. And I'd go and tell you they're found in everyone in varying degrees.

Identification in the early part of a leader's career is a good first step toward decreasing the possibility of continuing or worsening toxic behavior. This identification and recognition is critical and can only be accomplished through further study and education of superiors as the need to recognize it and take appropriate action. The appropriate action on the part of the superiors is good leadership itself. So there you go. And that's some toxic leadership for you. Obviously not just in the army, but everywhere.

It could be in any organization. And like I said, if you look inside, if you look in the mirror, they might be in you. They probably are in you just a little bit. So pay attention. Try and detach. See your weak points and try and get better. That's what we're doing. And speaking of getting better as a leader, we're trying to get better in all aspects of our life.

Mentally and physically. Which means we're getting after it. Did you lift today? Nope. I thought you were like new program was you're lifting before we show up here. Before show up, yeah, sometimes. You did that once. How good did that feel? I did a bunch of that, but yeah, it felt great. You're correct. Yes. Because now when we get done and we have to record some underground after this, so you're already going to be

you how are you gonna feel when we get done today are you gonna are you gonna be happy you don't have it in the books yeah you're right unhappy the workout is looming what do you got today i got squats too oh oh oh oh guess what they're in the books for the kid over here already done the point you were making is absolutely correct and i agree with it yep and you don't think about that like

When the alarm clock goes off, you're like, dude, I'm going to get this done. I'm going to have this in the books. Yeah. Well, you know, look, at risk of creating verbal excuses in the clear, by the way, you know, last night I fell asleep super early and it was off rhythm with my normal fall asleep time. So then I woke up. I woke up at like two something and then I couldn't go back to sleep. And I started feeling myself getting tired at about five.

maybe like a 637 scenario. And at that point, you just can't, you can't work out. I can't get up and do squats and then try to come here. It couldn't happen. But that's what happened. You know, could I have done it? Yeah, I could have. But you're going to wish you would have. Well, hey, when you get done with your squats, you need some fuel to rebuild. Yep.

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So it's like, bro, you can't be guaranteed to have that quality. You see what I'm saying? JockoFuel.com. We got deals on there. We got free shipping over 99 bucks. We got pretty much everything is in stock there if you need something. We got the whole loyalty program. You get freaking cool stuff. Gifts. Get cool gifts, stuffs. Get those subscriptions, up to 20% off on subscriptions. We got a little...

we got the sms thing did you know that yeah yeah yeah if you text jocofuel to two four six seven two you'd be on that we got a loyalty program and we got look in the goods we got you know what we got protein hydration energy joint health immunity we got everything on there so check it out jocofuel.com if you don't go to jocofuel.com check out walmart check out wawa check out vitamin shop check out gncs military commissaries

Hannaford dash stores wake Fern shop right H EB down in Texas Meyer in the Midwest Wegmans Harris Teeter Publix down in Florida Keeping it real lifetime fitness shields small gyms everywhere And if you've got a gym that you go to or you own a gym, but maybe it's a jiu-jitsu gym Maybe it's a powerlifting gym. Maybe it's a strongman gym. Maybe it's a Pilates gym. I

You want Jocko Fielder? Email jfsales at jockofielder.com. We'll get you hooked up. Also, OriginUSA.com. You want to, we discussed jujitsu a bit today. The lessons, we talked for, what, an hour? An hour today? Hour and a half, something like this. Talked for an hour and a half. We had to constrain ourselves from talking about jujitsu for an hour and a half. Could have done it the whole time. Because there's lessons.

There's lessons about life, about your heart, about your mind, about your soul. You'll learn them there on the Jiu-Jitsu mats of justice. So do Jiu-Jitsu. And when you do Jiu-Jitsu, you're going to need some kind of a uniform to train Jiu-Jitsu in. Maybe gi. Maybe no gi. Gi? Get a gi. Get an Origin USA gi. Maybe no gi. Get an Origin USA rash guard. Shorts. Whatever you need. But you can't wear a gi.

Or a rash guard, unless you're John Donahue. You can't wear a rash guard just to the grocery store to pick up some charcoal fuel. Can't do that. That's why we make jeans. That's why we make t-shirts, hoodies. Anything that you need, we got you covered. Go to originusa.com. Get gear and clothing and belts and wallets and hats that are 100% made in America from American materials. That's what we're doing. We're bringing manufacturing and freedom to America.

back to America. Originusa.com, check it out. - Yeah, it's true. Also, when we look out for ourselves and others around us, we're on this path, right? - Yeah, hell yeah. - We know what it's like to deviate from the path, get in the weeds. - No good.

Your mind. It's up to you what you put in your body. It's up to you what you put in your ears slash your mind and your eyes, by the way, what you're watching, what you're in touch with in the world. Do what you want with this, bro. I'm telling you. Because this is what reminded me of this SMS thing. You know, when you sign up for that and you get like constant, it keeps you like in touch with the right direction. Trust me, it doesn't. It's not always like that. So.

Jocko's does is what it's about Jocko's store. This is how you can represent while you're on the path It's up to you how you represent as well. So it keeps you in touch. Yeah for sure, but Representing the path is just yet another way to stay in touch. So discipline equals freedom you can get your shirts hats hoodies Good stuff on there. Um, also what we call the shirt locker Subscription scenario new design every month discipline equals freedom or things of the like

- Interesting design. Some new stuff coming up, by the way. So if you wanna be in touch with us, so we dropped this, we dropped this Independence shirt. - Check, Independence Day. - I try to do it every year, you know, to freaking celebrate the Independence Day or whatever. And sometimes they'll sell out certain sizes. See what I'm saying? And some people be too late. To mitigate that, you can just sign up on the email list. It's at the bottom. I'm not gonna spam you with nothing.

But you say you put your email on the list and you'll get first dibs on all the new stuff. And there's two new things coming out now within the next three, four weeks. Two new items. Beyond the Independence Day shirt? Beyond the Independence Day shirt, yep. Okay. We wait with bated breath. So if you want first dibs on that, freaking sign up on the email thing. Anyway, jockelstore.com. That's where it all is. Awesome. Also, check out primalbeef.com and coloradocraftbeef.com. We got awesome steaks.

Made by awesome people, awesome companies. So you need steak. I need steak. We all need steak. ColoradoCraftBeef.com, PrimalBeef.com. Check them out. Also subscribe to the podcast. Also Jocko Underground. We're getting ready to record a couple of those right now. We answer all of your questions. So check out JockoUnderground.com. YouTube. We got a bunch of books. I've written a bunch of books. Dave Burke has written a book. It's called Need to Lead.

You can pre-order that right now. Let the manufacturer of the book know, let the publisher know that we need to print more of these. We do that by pre-ordering the book, Need to Lead by Dave Burke. Also, I've written a bunch of books, everything from novels to kids' books to books about discipline to books about leadership. You can check those out anywhere you get books.

And then of course, I have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Whatever problems you have inside your organization, the root cause of those problems is leadership. It may not be toxic leadership. There may be a low level of toxicity. Maybe you don't even barely even notice it. Just like feels like a little sniffle. Your nose feels a little jammed up. Maybe you got something more significant. Maybe it's dragging you down. The problems that you have inside your organization are leadership problems. At Echelon Front, we fix those problems through leadership.

So go to echelonfront.com. We can embed in your organization and help you with your leadership. Also, we do events. If you want to come to one of our events, check it out, echelonfront.com. We got the muster. We got the council. We got Battlefield. We got FTX. We got the Women's Assembly. We got all kinds of things that you can come and check out, echelonfront.com. We also have an online training program.

It's at the Extreme Ownership Academy, extremeownership.com. This is where we take these lessons that we've learned to make sure that you're not a freaking toxic leader. We can give you a little symptoms you got. You got a little something, we'll apply some radiation to that spot and get rid of the toxicity.

Learn the skills of leadership, extremeownership.com. And then if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. Amazing charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to americasmightywarriors.org. Also check out Micah Fink's badass organization, heroesandhorses.org. And then finally, Jimmy Mays' organization, beyondthebrotherhood.org.

And if you want to connect with us, you can check out Jocko.com and then on social media, I'm at Jocko Willink, Echo's at Echo Charles. Just be careful because that algorithm on there, which is programmed, which is artificial intelligence, which will get inside your brain and wreck your life. Be careful. Don't let it happen. Set a little timer, seven minutes, seven minutes, seven minutes. You can waste on that. Then get back to your real life.

Thanks to all our military personnel out there. Sometimes I know that you have to put up with some toxic leaders in order to protect us and our way of life. Thank you for what you do every day to overcome those challenges and keep us safe. And also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all the other first responders. I know sometimes you all deal with toxic leaders as well. Thank you for dealing with them in order to protect us here at home and everyone else out there.

As is our habit, we blame other people. And you may have spent the last hour and a half listening and identifying all the toxic qualities that everybody else around you has. And while there may be some toxic leaders around you, you can't really control them. You can control yourself. So be a good person, a humble person with integrity and honor and be competent in your job and be responsible and keep your ego in check.

And put the team ahead of yourself, and you'll be in a good spot as a good leader. That's all I've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.