A leader does not always have the level of power or depth of influence needed for a given situation or circumstance, and this creates complex problems. When a leader lacks leadership (influence), they rely on authority. Authoritative leadership works in some contexts (e.g., military, police), with checks and balances. However, authoritative leadership runs the risk of crossing over to an ego-driven motivation. Because of their ego, they become selfish, focused on the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law to control people. Their attitude is condescending, the rules are not for them, but for the “employees”. They believe that they are better than the employees and treat people with disrespect, degrading employees, talking tough with no merit, and implementing penalties and punishment to show off their authority. Their sole focus is to achieve a result.
An authoritarian leader struggles to influence people to get things done because people are demotivated and will not follow that leader unless forced. When results are not achieved the pressure grows to intense levels and threats, blame, and accusations are leveraged against workers. Weak leadership creates a vacuum that works against them, and they don’t even realize what they are doing to themselves-it’s a serious blind spot. This blind spot forces weak leaders to leverage their full authority to dictate policies and procedures, direct the action of people, control all efforts and behaviors, and coerce people with false data and fake narratives because they are desperate and egotistical. It creates a vacuum where performance and participation by employees become meaningless and engagement drops into low percentages as evidence that their leadership is not working. Therefore, these types of leaders don’t want to participate in employee engagement surveys or other metrics—they’re not interested in the truth or in improving because they don’t care about the employees, just themselves. This type of leader needs to be fired immediately but is not fired, mostly because executive leaders are the same way. It’s a leadership silo of ineffective leadership.