There can be no leaders without followers. So, the latter have an important role to play in preventing the rise of leaders with dark personality traits. Education is essential. We should make ourselves and others aware of the potential risks posed by such leaders. It is also important to be able to identify people with dark traits. This applies not only to leaders, but also to those who aspire to lead, and those who support them.
It is important to develop our own set of values and to reject any influences which might cause us to deviate from or alter them. Simply saying “no” to an unethical request by a dark leader may be possible if we are in a reasonably secure position. This has the advantage of advertising the problem to others who might support us. However, it is fraught with difficulties when our livelihood is at stake, and a less overt approach may be needed, therefore. There are many ways in which a project can fail without drawing attention to ourselves, and many ways in which we can gain time to find an alternative livelihood.
Adrian Furnham, principal behavioural psychologist at Stamford Associates, notes that when selecting people for leadership roles we select those with positive traits but do not deselect those with negative ones (Furnham, 2019). The best-known technique for idetifying these traits is the Hogan Development Survey, details of which can be found at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373015957_The_Hogan_Development_Survey & https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316341398_Hogan_Development_Survey
The psychologist, Steve Taylor, has suggested that tests to profile potential leaders can be subject to cheating. (Taylor, 2021). There are certainly many sites on the internet that offer to prepare candidates for such tests. However, the darker and more ingrained the traits, the more difficult it becomes to hide them. Both Furnham and Taylor suggest questioning people who have, in the past, worked with or for potential candidates. The implementation of such tests is, of course, likely to be resisted by those who are in power. However, the fewer the dark leaders, the more acceptable implementation becomes.
Leaders can be appointed by a top-down or a bottom-up process. The top-down process prevails in industry, and the bottom-up process in democratic government. Clearly, the top-down process enables dark leaders to select those like themselves, and thus, a toxic culture can develop. However, as evidenced by some of our democratically elected leaders the bottom-up process is fraught with problems too. Essentially, electorates who do not know a politician personally can easily be manipulated.
Nevertheless, democracy is a significant inhibitor of power. It is not a finished product, however. Rather, it is a process which, in the UK for example, has been going on for many centuries, steadily distributing the power of the elite ever more widely. This process has tended to be two steps forward and one step back. One elite, the land-owning class, has been replaced by another, the industry-owning one, then by another the finance-owning one, and so on. There still is much to do, of course, and we will never be satisfied with the situation during our individual lifetimes. However, we must do what we can to ensure democracy’s continued progress. There will always be those who feel threatened this and who will attempt to reverse it. We should, therefore, remain aware of their activities and counter them vigorously whenever necessary.
Another problem is that people without dark personality traits are less likely to seek leadership roles. Such roles can be hard work and stressful. Furthermore, the higher we climb in a hierarchy, the more likely it is that we will have to deal with and interact with others who have dark traits. This can be an unpleasant experience. These factors discourage potentially competent leaders with light personalities. So, we need to encourage them by supporting them and by equipping them with the skills to compete with their darker colleagues. As dark personalities are progressively weeded out this should become easier.
Although all organisations need a control component, i.e., leadership, this does not necessarily have to be a single individual. It is increasingly common in more left-leaning organisations to have co-leaders, one male and one female. In an article in The Conversation online magazine, Steve Taylor describes the process of “sortition” used by the Athenians, in which leaders were randomly selected by lot and incompetence guarded against by the formation of decision- making groups. (Taylor, 2023).
Finally, another way forward is to distribute power. Essentially, this means preventing the rise of monopolistic organisations and distributing both function and decision-making ability to networks of much smaller ones. There is an optimum size of organisation and large inefficient ones, whether they be businesses, governmental organisations, or empires, tend to be established solely to satisfy their leaders’ need for power.
In summary, there are several vicious circles that currently sustain a relatively high level of dark leadership. It will take time to convert these into virtuous circles that favour a lighter version. Change will not happen overnight therefore, and the only way forward is to keep up the pressure in many small ways.
References
Furnham, A., 2019. “The dark side of investment management failure”. CFA Society, UK. https://www.cfauk.org/pi-listing/the-dark-side-of-investment-management-failure#gsc.tab=0
Taylor, S., 2021. “How to stop psychopaths and narcissists from winning positions of power”. The Conversation, UK. https://theconversation.com/how-to-stop-psychopaths-and-narcissists-from-winning-positions-of-power-158183
Taylor, S., 2023. “How the ancient Greeks kept ruthless narcissists from capturing their democracy – and what modern politics could learn from them”. The Conversation, UK. https://theconversation.com/how-the-ancient-greeks-kept-ruthless-narcissists-from-capturing-their-democracy-and-what-modern-politics-could-learn-from-them-208042
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