The authoritarian leader becomes a bottleneck to their success and achieving the desired results because their focus is on control, not the vision of the organization. This type of leader is weakened and becomes petty and pathetic. The use of authority works in the opposite of discretionary effort. Authoritarian leaders have the wrong focus. They want full control of the team, and that includes full or partial credit for everything accomplished, and do not tolerate much autonomy within the group. Authoritarian leaders become a barrier to people’s performance and their potential. Authoritarians punish and penalize people for failing to comply with their demands, which are often beyond the policies of the organization, and become biased and prejudiced in their behaviors. Authoritarian leaders do not focus on performance. Authoritarians use veiled and unveiled threats and engage in a range of both overt and covert manipulation of employee behaviors, tactics, and even intimidation to try to ensure compliance with their wishes. The consequences of authoritarian leadership are intense stress levels for employees based on factors such as intolerance of mistakes, expectations for complete compliance, and demands for results through expectations that employees should be working harder and faster. Authoritarian leaders consistently raise the bar, and abuse power because they are emotionally detached from their people, and they often are unable to empathize with others. Authoritarian leadership fails in the long run, it wears people out, psychologically damages them, and causes people to leave the organization, employees work below performance standards, decrease engagement, or leave the organization in self-preservation. Yet, authoritarian leadership is tolerated, and the authoritarian leader never sees their behavior as wrong, or worse… they just don’t care.
