Why Are We Surrounded by Toxic Leaders?

Have Ever Heard of the Action Fallacy?

The “Action Fallacy”

I don't know about you, but I can definitely relate to the following comments:

The second one hits home quite hard: “Nobody ever gets credit for fixing problems that never happened.”

I found these in the comments section of a TEDx Talk titled “Are We Celebrating the Wrong Leaders?” by Martin Gutmann, a professor at the Lucerne School of Business.

While I was painfully familiar with the phenomenon of people being celebrated for fixing problems they initially created, I didn't have a name for it until I saw this video. Now I do! It's called the 'action fallacy'.

I don’t know if it’s the same for but, in my experience, the few individuals pulling through the stressful, painful, but totally preventable all-nighters get celebrated for fixing problems they themselves caused, while the many individuals going about their highly productive, smooth, business-as-usual days get completely ignored!

But why? Why does that happen? To cite Prof. Gutmann, it’s because:

“we mistake a good story with good leadership.”

It’s because we love memorable stories. And memorable stories have ups and downs, have heroes, villains, moments of truth, despair, joy, failure, and triumph. Good stories are all about tension and resolve—that’s the essence of the ars dramatica. No drama, no good story, essentially. Nobody would want to watch a movie in which the hero flawlessly wins every battle, effortlessly overcomes all the obstacles, and saves humankind by swiftly slaying the final villain in 30 seconds flat. That’s a boring story!

The tendency to enjoy good stories has a significant impact on company dynamics. It’s almost as if it doesn’t matter what you do, you can even mess everything up, as long as your boss and co-workers see that you actually “do stuff” and eventually “fix problems.” Sounds familiar? Because for me it definitely does!

That is what the action fallacy is all about. Citing Gutmann again:

“appearing to be a good leader, rather than being one behind the scenes, is the path to fame and bonus and promotion.”

Apparently, that’s why clumsy busy bees get all the attention while we end up giving no credit to people who just meticulously and boringly get the job done. That is why “silent leaders” are such a rarity—they don’t get promoted! And that’s also why we are surrounded by toxic leaders—because they get all the attention!

The image below is also from Professor Gutmann.

Leaving aside notable exceptions in fact, the consequence of all of this is that, despite competence and skills, we are led by individuals who are best suited for environments where drama is celebrated. For obvious reasons, this tends to be those who are biased towards action, speak more, appear more confident, are perpetually busy, and, I add, are egocentric, overconfident, and overly focused on showing their work. To me, that’s the dictionary definition of toxicity.

Now, forget about the fact that this creates a terrible working environment. This is particularly detrimental because it sets a bad example. It creates a vicious cycle in which people get used to the fact that this kind of leadership gets promoted and, as a consequence, embrace it as their own leadership style. This way, the company gets filled with toxic leaders very quickly.

Fight Fire With Fire

What should we do then? How do we fix this?

By breaking the cycle! Let’s start paying attention to silent leaders and actively celebrate them. Refuse to take part in the circus of drama. Call out toxic behaviour when you see it. Stop tolerating it. On the other hand, when you actually see good leadership in someone, make sure you let them know. Send them a message or an email praising their behaviour. Give them explicit feedback. Publicly appreciate their demeanour. Break the vicious cycle, promote silent leaders, and champion true leadership!

Let’s fight fire with fire! Since storytelling is so important, let’s become better communicators. As individual contributors, let’s not forget to show our work and openly celebrate our achievements, especially those that did not involve any drama. Let’s demonstrate that things can be done and goals can be achieved without necessarily pulling through all-nighters, without hard feelings, without harsh conversations, and without vain acts of preventable heroism.

And how about you? What is your workplace like? How many silent leaders do you have? Share your thoughts with the rest of us!

In the meantime, have a nice week! 😊👋

Cheers,

Fusco.