How to leverage power to counter a toxic leader

We’ve all been there. Great job with an organization we believe in. Excited about the work that we do. Enjoying the people we work with. Yet there is one element that can make the whole thing come crashing down like pulling the wrong block while playing Jenga… Working for a toxic leader. The leader that tends to explode when they are having a bad day. The leader that will publicly belittle your work when there is a small mistake. The leader that will claim credit for the success of the team just to shine in front of their own boss.

Now, going into work is not as enjoyable, there is a pit in your stomach that starts to grow on Sunday evening as the weekend winds down. You may even start looking for a job. That sense of control makes you feel powerful. Your taking action to improve your situation. Meanwhile, that toxic leader is costing the company money every time an employee turns over. They can’t explain why they keep losing employees. They may start to feel less powerful over the high employee turnover. According to Work Institute’s 2017 Retention report, it costs a company roughly $15K per person to replace an employee with a median salary of $45K/yr.

You may not realize it, but power is fluid in the workplace. Let’s dive into how you can approach balancing power at work so you don’t have to give up that great job, with fun peers, just because of one leader’s destructive behavior.

According to work by Payal Sharma and Rachel Sturm (Sharma & Strum, 2021) there are two sources of power that can be leveraged to become more powerful at work. Personal sources of power consist of factors such as personality, values, and attitudes. Relational sources of power consist of leveraging relationships where power can be shared between people.

Personal sources of Power:

1) Self-Monitoring: The perspective you take on adaptability. Are you not only ‘self’- aware, but also ‘other’-aware? Can you read the room and adapt to the cues of others in the room? Are you aware of the impact you have on others and can you accurately assess how others perceive you? Be willing to seek feedback from those you trust to learn how to alter your behavior to be more responsive when reading the room. Being able to read the cues of the toxic leader and adapt will help you quickly diffuse situations before they go too far.

2) Proactive Personality: This is your disposition for overcoming challenges. Are you able to take the initiative to act on opportunities and persevere until change occurs or the goal is achieved? Do you speak-up and take on the challenging tasks that help the team succeed? Learning to stay ahead of your toxic leader, showing that you are willing to take on the tough assignments to help the team succeed, and working within your team to bring others along while building a strong support system can help balance the power dynamic with a toxic leader.

3) Locus of Control: This is how much you believe in your ability to control your environment and if that control stems from forces within you (internal), or forces outside of you (external). Are you able to adjust to changing work conditions? Are you willing to take personal responsibility for outcomes? If you believe that you can control aspects of your work environment, you will feel more powerful, and will be more likely to make decisions, and leverage those resources within your control.

Relational sources of Power:

1) Impression Management: This is the idea that how you present yourself, how you influence others to see you and the characteristics you exude will impact outcomes. Ingratiation, do people see you as likeable? Are you giving authentic positive compliments and helpful? Competence, do people see that you know your job and can execute? Are you someone others can work with? Are you virtuous and moral? Are you helpful to others? Impression management is a balancing act and it’s important to remain authentic. Understanding how people view you within the team will link directly to feeling powerful and being seen as powerful.

2) Social Networks: This relates to how much we leverage and build the informal ties within the workplace. This is truly the start to building a coalition at work. Much of what gets done in the workplace can be traced to social networks vs the formal organizational hierarchy. Having a strong supportive network allows you to seek advice and perspective from those you trust. It allows you a place to vent and gain insights to approaching interactions with the toxic leader.

3) Group Unity: Bringing a group together without fault lines or cliques. This is where the power of many outweighs the power of one. When a group unites for the common good, there is power in numbers.

Now that we’ve talked through two sources of power in the workplace, let’s look at two areas that can countervail the impact of a toxic leader. These areas were brought about through the work of Elijah Wee and colleagues (Wee, Liao, Liu, & Liu, 2017)

Coalition formation is a strategy that you can use to bring people together that work for the same toxic leader. This is about forming a united front. No one performer is more or less valuable than the other. This can be accomplished by sharing responsibility, sharing credit for the “TEAM’s success” amongst its members. When there is no one person that the toxic leader must rely on or to target, the probability of the leader reconciling their behavior will go up. At the end of the day, the leader is reliant on the team for results.

Value enhancement is a strategy that incorporates increasing specific knowledge, skills, and abilities that are considered valuable by the leader. Becoming a subject matter expert in a required field or obtaining unique skills like data analytics will help you to become a valued member of the team that is depended on by the leader. Remember, once you enhance your value — help your team members gain complimentary skills!

Take the time to reflect, understand your sources of power, map out a plan to increase your power, bring others along with you, and you have a fighting chance to improve your work environment. You may even see the toxic leader reconcile for their behavior. And most of all, you may be able to enjoy that Sunday evening and look forward to the challenges ahead of you during your work week!

References:

Sharma, P., & Strum, R. (2021). Becoming powerful at work. Organizational Dynamics, Article in Press.

Wee, E., Liao, H., Liu, D., & Liu, J. (2017). Moving from abuse to reconciliation: A power-dependence perspective on when and how a follower can break the spiral of abuse. Academy of Management Journal, 2352–2380.