discussion board and reply for 2 people
discussion board question:
Within the unethical leadership presentation, I talked a lot about the dark side of leadership and what causes it. One concept that contributes to the dark side is the romance of leadership (the concept that people love leadership and have a need to put their future in a leader’s “capable” hands). What can we do about this romance of leadership and people’s over reliance on leadership? or should we?
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reply for this discussion:
Addressing the Romance of Leadership
The romance of leadership contributes to the dark side of leadership. Tower (2018) describes the dark side of leadership as a continuous behavioral pattern exhibited by a leader that leads to negative outcomes in organizational or group settings. The dark side of leadership arises from the interactions between the environment, the leader and the followers (Tower, 2018). The romance of leadership arise when the followers over rely on the leaders’ capabilities; the followers love their leader to the extent of failing to criticize the leader’s actions even if such actions are unethical. In this regard, there is a spread of negative attributes from the leader to the followers.
Notably, romance with leadership trigger arrogance, the leader feels that because he or she is loved and the most relied on in the organization, he becomes arrogant. Furthermore, the leader may develop negative attributes such as being overly controlling, narcissistic, selfish, or dishonest (Padilla & Mulvey, 2008). When followers comply with the negative attributes of the leader, the organizational or group outcomes are affected. The followers should deal with the romance of leadership by being empowered to be critical of the actions and behavior of their leader. Importantly, the leaders should be educated on the negative effects of being idolized by their followers because such actions may affect their performance. Case studies of organizations that failed due to a romance of leadership should be shared with leaders so that they should avoid situations where they are loved at the expense of ethical and professional performance.
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reply discussion 2
I think when we talk about this romance of leadership it is important to know exactly what one looks like. I believe romance of leadership is shown in leadership when leaders help you toward your future by guiding you in the correct direction. With romance leadership, if you put your trust into a leader’s hands you believe that person is going to take care of you. That is not always the case when it comes to this. We believe and trust a lot of people especially leaders and those leaders might not always be looking out for us. Some will be selfish and make you do things to help them look better and help their future. But there are great leaders out there that will do what’s right for your future and help you. I feel like there are a lot more of these than people who are always thinking about themselves.
I think it is important to be careful when finding romance leaders because you want to make sure they are going to take care of you. You don’t want to put your trust in someone and listen to them if they aren’t going to help you with the future.
