Looking For Leaders

Commentary : Allure of toxic leaders

Nono Alfonso, SJ, Institute on Church and Social Issues
Inquirer News Service

"WHERE have all the good leaders gone?"

This question has haunted the country since the start of the crisis of credibility that has besieged the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. In survey after survey, people have opined that although they distrust the President, they see no alternative to her at this juncture. In a manner of speaking, some say it is a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.

This curious predicament is the subject of Jean Lipman-Blumen's new book entitled, "The allure of toxic leaders: why we follow destructive bosses and corrupt politicians -- and how we can survive them." Blumen, who has written books on leadership and was a special adviser to President Jimmy Carter, divides her book into two parts. The first part deals with why we tolerate "toxic" leaders and the second part tells us how we can liberate ourselves from this kind of leaders.

She starts by defining what she means by toxic leaders. These are "leaders who engage in numerous destructive behaviors and who exhibit certain dysfunctional personal characteristics," she says. "To count as toxic, these behaviors and qualities of character must inflict some reasonably serious and enduring harm on their followers and their organizations."

Many observers have pointed out how the Arroyo administration has emasculated our democratic institutions. Corruption, they say, has escalated in an unprecedented scale. All this therefore makes the government a toxic one by Blumen's standards.

Describing further the qualities of toxic leaders, Blumen provides a list which includes "playing to the basest fears and needs of followers, misleading followers through deliberate untruths and misdiagnoses of issues and problems, identifying scapegoats and inciting others to castigate them, improperly clinging to power, subverting those structures and processes of the system intended to generate truth, justice and excellence, and engaging in unethical, illegal and criminal acts." Reading the list, one would think one is reading the impeachment complaint against the President filed by the opposition last month.

But the real giveaway is when Blumen says that toxic leaders are "consciously feeding their followers illusions that enhance the leaders' power and impair the followers' capacity to act independently, including persuading the followers that they are the only one who can save them or the organization." Not only has this administration been obsessed with doing and redoing the President's image, even hiring professional PR outfits for the task, it has also peddled the highly arguable "truth" that she is the only one who can save this country, the only who can lead us to unparalleled economic development. (I have always believed that with the President held hostage from the start by political wheeling and dealing, it was her economic team led by Emma Boncodin that authored whatever economic gains we have achieved.) And yet the President's inner circle has capitalized on this image, which has been accepted by not a few people as gospel truth.

This brings us to Blumen's main point: There are toxic leaders as there are gullible followers.

Why do we tolerate toxic leaders? What makes us vulnerable to the illusions and myths they weave? Blumen cites internal and external reasons. The internal ones are deep-seated psychological needs such as "our need for reassuring authority figures to fill our parents' shoes, our need for security and certainty, our need to feel chosen, our need for membership in the human community, our fear of isolation, and social death, our fear of personal powerlessness to challenge a bad leader." Because of the interaction of these needs, we would rather compromise our freedom and autonomy and tolerate abusive leaders whether in the family, in the workplace or in our communities.

There are also external factors that make us submit to erring leaders. These factors consist of the societal problems and crises that cause fear and anxiety in our lives. In a world of uncertainty and instability, we crave for a certainty and stability. "Constant change, seasoned with ambiguity, increases our vulnerability to toxic leaders," Blumen argues. "They promise to allay those fears and protect us: in the anxiety of such moments, we become only too willing to trade our fears for the sheltering 'security' of a strong leader, one with a clear ideology and explanation of the disturbing changes exploding around us, a leader who can bring meaning to our chaotic world."

Secondly, there are cultural factors such as society's achievement ethic. It is an unfinished world and leaders present themselves as the ones who can get the work done.

In all, both these internal and external factors conspire to make of us willing followers to toxic leaders. We are forever in search of saviors or even gods.

How then do we liberate ourselves from toxic leaders? Blumen suggests familiar solutions such as joining with others in confronting if not overthrowing the toxic leader. Institutional mechanisms also help such as "putting term limits, repairing the flawed process for selecting leaders, creating respectable departure options." But the long-term solution is realizing the "leader within" each one of us.

The traditional school teaches that leadership is a privilege, the birthright of a few. It's high time we understood it as a responsibility everyone must undertake, Blumen says. This new understanding widens the pool of would-be leaders. Then we don't have to ask the question, "Where have all the good leaders gone?"

With this empowering message, Blumen ends her book the same way she opens it by quoting from Bertolt Brecht: "Unhappy the land that has no heroes. No, unhappy the land that is in need of heroes."