Land Forces Academy Review Vol. XXV, No 3(99), 2020

THE IMPACT OF TOXIC IN THEATER OF OPERATIONS – AFGHANISTAN

Cristian ENE “Nicolae Bălcescu” Land Forces Academy, Sibiu, Romania [email protected]

Alexandru BABOȘ “Nicolae Bălcescu” Land Forces Academy, Sibiu, Romania [email protected]

Marius BUCURENCIU “Nicolae Bălcescu” Land Forces Academy, Sibiu, Romania [email protected]

ABSTRACT The toxic leadership point out damaging attitudes and behaviours which can affect leaders’ personal traits resulting severe damage to the and its subordinates. Given the multinational environment from a theatre of operations, what might be toxic for the military in one country might be accepted in another one, taking into consideration the discrepancies between cultures. No matter their cultural background or their national particularities, the toxic leaders reduce the effectiveness of the organization and of it’s operations. This article wants to highlight, from an analytical approach, the existing types of toxic leaders and their impact to the military organization in Afghanistan theatre of operations.

KEYWORDS: toxic, leadership, leader attitude, military

1. Introduction of the energy, compromise the sanity and In the military organization, admitting may eventually destroy careers. We must and understanding the true nature and also take into consideration if toxic impact of toxic attitudes and behaviours can leadership is explained in terms of mitigate the potential risk which we deal damaging outcomes, then it might be with at . Toxic leaders are possible for good leaders to produce bad particular individuals who are driven by results, and bad leaders to produce their destructive attitudes and flawed beneficial outcomes (Padilla, Hogan & personal qualities cause severe and Kaiser, 2007). Toxic leaders are a true enduring vicious effects (Lipman-Blumen, reality in the life of a military organization. 2005). Moreover they dot the landscape in Our capability to handle with such leaders the military organization making them feel, will have an eloquent impact on our career. at times, like war zones. These leaders can The difference variation between top complicate everybody’s work, drain most and mediocre leaders is usually the

DOI: 10.2478/raft-2020-0021 © 2017. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.

175 competence to deal with the toughest comply with the actions, ideas and its situations, including the most rigid people. objectives. Basically, disciples play a In this category will be our bosses, but also crucial role in the companionship of our subordinates, and some will be our narcissistic leaders (Bennis, 2010). Ruthless colleagues. leaders are also popular amongst the NATO Even the top military personnel could in Afghanistan, because of the also be affected by the existence of toxic conflict environment, the frequent crisis leadership because of their profound situations, the constant pressure from the harmful impact on the organization. Coalition and from the leaders of the Grandiose, rigid and ruthless leaders Afghan army, determine the appearance of weaken morale. Dealing with toxic this type of leaders in the theatre of superiors, military personnel may fall back, operations. neglect sharing important information, To check the following statements, we losing the energy or motivation to go the used the survey method, by applying an extra kilometre, lose inspiration and opinion questionnaire with closed items, as a creativity, become annoyed and antagonist, data collection tool. The questionnaire survey and eventually quit. In order to prevent method is one of the most widely used means catastrophic disasters for the organization, of collecting data, demonstrating its we should understand each type of toxic effectiveness by being able to interrogate a leadership and correct where is possible the large sample of people at the same time and unnatural behaviour. by clearly capturing the defining elements The more information we have about of the respondents or the environment from leaders’ traits and how adjustable they are, which they come. The results obtained the better our ability to assign people to allow the conclusion issuance of reality position in which they will flourish, also (Chelcea, 2001). avoid putting them where failure could Volatile leaders are making their strike and construct teams which are really presence felt in NATO institutions in productive. Afghanistan due to the existing high level. They get annoyed easily, sometimes for 2. Types of Toxic Leaders in trivial reasons, because they can’t resist the Afghanistan avalanche of extreme situations they are A theatre of operations is a dangerous interested in during the mission. Moreover, place to be. Everyone’s life is at risk and out of the desire to obtain the expected having amongst us a toxic leader might results, they are consumed, ground on the endanger our operations even more. Every inside and sometimes burst like clockwork, debate of leadership relies on certain because stress and worries reach paroxysmal presumptions (Hogan, Kaiser & Craig, levels. Furthermore, the grandiose leader is 2008). But still, we can’t run from toxic present in the life of military organizations in leaders and most of the time we must work the theatre of operations with a fairly high with them and embrace their thoughts and percentage. The tendency to believe in the their orders in a blink of an eye. One of the masters of the world, like the Olympian gods, most common types of toxic leaders is the is their way of perceiving the world and daily narcissist. These kind of leaders have a life itself. This Olympic behaviour makes strong impression of ownership, whose them want to reach the highest peaks in any imposing behaviour and sometimes plane of life. The devaluation of superiors, arrogant, turn most subordinates into perfect colleagues and subordinates gives them acolytes, because they feel the great satisfaction and nourishes their ego. In presence of the narcissistic leader and Afghanistan, regardless of the military

176 organization in which they work, they and internalize enough and cannot display their the narcissistic leaders are the first to stand toxic behaviours, because they have to out at all costs, regardless of the nature of adapt to a lively, vigilant and the event in which they take part. Their communicative environment. Throughout desire to achieve all or nothing turns them the mission, a leader who was antisocial can into dangerous leaders who can change his behaviour depending on the metamorphose into real atomic bombs if environment. However, their manipulative they do not achieve their goals or if their nature and their extraordinary persuasion pride is achieved by someone else. can cause them to remain unchanged, as Additionally, the leader obsessed with long as they manage to achieve their goals, control also makes his presence felt. even if superficial. The six types of toxic Although the number of leaders who are leaders presented can give us an idea of obsessed with control is very low in this how harmful an environment can be even in multinational environment, they can cause a multinational setting. Working in the anxiety for their subordinates, which can shadow of such leaders can often be a turn into acts of insubordination, strained daunting challenge. However, what kind of relations or even crises at the organizational behaviour should we have so that we can level. The fear of losing control and lack of relate effectively to these leaders? trust in subordinates shapes behaviour in a Compromise is not always the best solution, way that is particularly harmful and but rather the tactful use of emotional destructive to the organization. Antisocial intelligence and , so as to sound the leaders are not long in coming, but the alarm to toxic leaders and determine them multinational environment and the urgent to change their behaviour because in the need to communicate with others make this Army, organizations regularly take on the type of leader almost non-existent in TO identity of their leaders (U.S. Department of military organizations. They cannot the Army, 2006).

Figure no. 1: Toxic leaders in TO Afghanistan

3. The Toxic Leader’s Impact on ways that bolster the toxic attitudes Subordinates and the Organization’s (Kusy & Holloway, 2009). Through their Performance destructive behaviour, toxic leaders can Negative behaviours generate a decrease the performance of subordinates negative feedback and soon the reactions and implicitly of the organization for which and the triggers begin to cripple the they carry out their activity. Toxic team or individuals, which could react in leadership is contradictory to selfless

177 service and discipline and that the traits Upper echelon military leaders are believed promoted by toxic leaders eventually to be the primary key when it comes to emerge in grievous negative effects for their influencing the creation and development of subordinates (Kusy et al., 2008). However, organizational culture (Giberson et al., 2009). there are different perceptions of toxic In conclusion, their organizational leadership among the military. performance depends on how the structures Submissiveness, obedience and conformity are run and how leaders at all levels relate to are present not only in military subordinates and pass on to them the values, organizations, but also in civilian ones. In a knowledge, skills and qualities needed to fit high-risk conflict environment, such as the military model, able to cope with theatres of operations, some soldiers prefer requirements of the military system. to be led by people with increased , violence, low inhibitions, no 4. Theoretical Recommendations , ready to risk everything to emerge No matter how strongly structured an victorious from a fight. Over the centuries, organization is, no matter how clearly its the military has given us countless responsibilities are outlined, without proper examples of toxic leaders who have done management, without coordination and significant damage, committed crimes control of the assigned actions, it cannot fulfil against humanity, committed genocide, and its objectives and function optimally. nothing has stopped them from achieving An appropriate in any their goals. They did not consider their organization can be one that finds and applies behaviour to be toxic, on the contrary, methods appropriate to understanding , or aggression subordinates and respecting the specific determined them to justify any action, no environment in the long run. Both the matter how odious, as it was fair. military system, through its complexity and The performance of military organizations variety and its missions, and the current in TO, regardless of their specificity, is security environment, which is constantly moderately affected by the types of toxic changing, being marked by uncertainty and leadership identified in this paper. vulnerability, requires efficiency from the This should guide the military system military in the exercise of its main mission towards the early identification of these guaranteeing autonomy, sovereignty, unity of toxic leaders and subjecting them to the state, but also the territorial integrity of specific training to correct deficiencies. the country and a constitutional democracy. This essential condition emphasizes that the This efficiency is dependent on many factors, military system, like any other system, must including how the structures in the military be constantly changing and adapting to the system are managed to adapt and channel new. The challenges of the 21st century and their leadership styles to meet the objectives. the immense pressure in the technological Recommendations for reducing toxicity sphere are putting army leaders in involve training campaigns in knowing and difficulty, because the avalanche of understanding leadership from the soldier's information we are hit with every day is first days in the army until the end of a overwhelming. Eliminating toxic ideas, general’s career, as learning must be toxic leadership requires time, dedication continuous. Training centres, military and a lot of work from knowledgeable educational institutions and military units people. Last but not least, toxic leadership across the national and multinational territory should not be accepted at any level of the should introduce more leadership modules in military hierarchy, from the soldier to the the curriculum and in the training plan every Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. year, as the art of leading others must be

178 constantly improved (Baboș & Rusu, 2020). damage is reduced or even removed from the Also, toxic behaviours that are repeated at a face, if identified in time. Last but not least, short interval in a military, must be treated by those toxic behaviours that endanger the behavioural therapy by the psychologist members of the organization and the approved by the unit in which the military organization itself, if they cannot be treated operates. The duty of superiors is of the by specialists, then those soldiers must be utmost importance in identifying individuals removed from the system, so as not to who exhibit toxic behaviours, so that the peril it.

Figure no. 2: Neutralizing toxic leaders (proposal)

5. Conclusions toxic behaviour fairly quickly if they deal Military organizations can be severely aggressively with the problem. affected by a narrow number of toxic Key elements in fostering this culture leaders. A grandiose leader could drive change could include: ensuring that top away the best people, alter people’s energy, leaders avoid aggressive, unethical, and and make dreadful decisions. Toxic leaders rigid behaviour; speaking out against it; within the body of the organization can obtaining 360-degree feedback on all markedly damage the performance of their leaders and making use of it in performance group. Military organization typically pays evaluations and training; getting proper relatively little attention to toxic behaviour. training for toxic leaders; avoiding Rather than expel toxic leaders out, promoting toxic leaders, and removing the organizations often confuse toxic traits for most serious wrongdoers. Actively working signs of great capabilities. Soldiers tend to to better contain toxic behaviour can have a relate with competence, tremendously beneficial impact for the aggressiveness with being an achiever, and productivity of military organizations as antisocial glibness with true achievement. well as for the well-being and career Missing crucial danger signs and mistaking success of those who work there. them for predictors of high performance Organizations that do this may gain a will lead a military organization to be filled significant competitive advantage. This is with potentially toxic leaders which can low-hanging fruit that remains to be picked. undoubtedly decrease the prevalence of

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