In our contemporary work culture, there’s a lot of talk about identifying top talent in organizations. That’s definitely important. Recognizing and rewarding talent is vital. But what if we told you identifying harmful leaders is more important than identifying strong ones? Hear us out.
In short, identifying harmful leaders matters because nothing makes people want to leave a company more than seeing bad behavior rewarded and recognized. Bad bosses or managers have a major human impact and can be a big driver for others to leave an organization. In fact, according to UKG, between someone’s manager, therapist and doctor, their manager has the greatest impact on their mental health. The impact is actually in equal measure to their romantic partners. Let’s sit with that for a moment.
Harmful leadership, more commonly referred to as “toxic leadership” is defined largely as a leader who uses their power to disregard the wellbeing of others. As defined in this Hubspot article, there are a number of traits commonly associated with “toxic leaders” such as lack of accountability, bullying, displaying unhealthy competition, micromanagement and more.
What complicates the identification of harmful or toxic leaders is that…oftentimes it’s not senior leaders who get to see or experience their harmful behaviors. Especially in today’s remote-hybrid workplace, it’s hard to keep an eye on what’s going on with your teams. Work is more siloed and private, and senior leaders don’t have a full 360-degree perspective. Plus, some harmful leaders may be especially good at managing up and putting their best foot forward with their own managers.
That’s where the Incompass 360-review platform comes in: It’s a tool for accurate feedback, converting qualitative reviews into quantitative data, so you can manage performance while reinforcing your company values. The Incompass model allows employees to select the colleagues they wish to review, which ultimately provides a more holistic and company-wide view of impact and performance, with more honest feedback all around.
Look, workplace relationships are complex. Some people work well together and some don’t. This doesn’t necessarily mean a certain individual is “toxic,” though it might. Incompass can help you get to the bottom of that. Through AI-assisted assessment, our platform ensures that you end up with vetted, validated data that can really help you pinpoint any polarizing or problematic talent. Our data reveals which individuals have the highest deviations in scoring, and who may be harmful to the company and company culture. Identifying these individuals is an opportunity – one for growth and development. We can help our teams understand their impact on those around them. And our AI assistant can even help craft relevant, helpful feedback to help them improve and grow.
When we said it was more important to identify harmful leaders, what we really meant is that by doing so, you ensure that you’re promoting your company values and fostering an environment where true top performers are rewarded. You’re demonstrating to your teams that good behavior gets noticed, and that bad behavior does, too. And by cutting through the noise of any harmful leadership, you may just unearth more talent, waiting for the opportunity to shine.
Cut through the noise with Incompass, and set the stage for talent to shine.
