Summary of Tarnished: Toxic Leadership in the U.S. Military by George E. Reed

The U.S. Army has a history of promoting toxic leaders. Over the years, the Army has tried implementing tools such as Command Climate surveys, Battalion Commander Assessment Program, and the 360 degree Multi-Source Assessment and Feedback program to try to weed out toxic leaders. Despite the Army’s best efforts, toxic leaders still slip through the promotion system and reach high ranking positions.

Here are a few headlines about toxic leadership from this year alone.

• The Army’s top general for public affairs has been suspended as the service inspector general investigates allegations of counterproductive and toxic leadership… (Military.com, Sep 2021)
• A Fort Hood brigade commander is under investigation after allegations of toxic leadership and violating coronavirus quarantine rules… (Military.com, Mar 2021)
• The Georgia National Guard has removed the leadership of its 648th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Fort Benning, Georgia, after the conclusion of a command climate investigation… (Army Times, Sep 2021)

I recently attended the Pre-Command Course at the Defense Acquisitions University. During the weeklong course, we spent a lot of time discussing toxic leadership and read the book, Tarnished: Toxic Leadership in the U.S. Military by George E. Reed. The book discusses the characteristics of toxic leaders, the impact they have on organizations, and survival tips for employees who find themselves in toxic environments.

Tarnished provides great lessons for leaders and employees alike. Here is a summary of some of the key points.

To begin, a toxic leader is a leader who “engage[s] in numerous destructive behaviors and who exhibit certain dysfunctional personal characteristics. To count as toxic, these behaviors and qualities of character must inflict some reasonably serious and enduring harm on their followers and their organizations.”

It is important to note that leadership style is perceived by the targets of influence — usually the subordinates. “The intentions of the leader are less important than the perceptions of the followers.” Therefore, leaders are toxic if their subordinates view their leadership style as toxic. This is one of the reasons why anonymous command climate surveys are critically important; they are frequently the only way to measure the level of toxicity in an organization.

The U.S. Army is especially prone to promote toxic leaders because of its hierarchical command structure. Junior leaders are told, “When in charge take charge” and “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” Emotional intelligence, respecting differing opinions, and fostering effective communication are secondary to accomplishing the mission.

Toxic leaders can get promoted by skillfully navigate the Army’s bureaucratic systems of power for their own benefit. They frequently foster special relationships with powerful protectors in senior leadership positions. The superiors of toxic leaders are either ignorant of their toxic subordinates behavior, or worse, they tolerate it because the subordinate delivers results.

Early in their careers, toxic leaders learn how to shine in the spotlight and make their boss look good. They frequently get the best evaluations and get promoted, regardless of the harm that they cause to their subordinates. This is why toxic leaders continue to get promoted to senior ranks.

The long term impacts of toxic leadership are well documented. As reported in Tarnished, employees working in a toxic environment reported the following reactions:

• 48 percent intentionally decreased their work effort.
• 47 percent intentionally decreased the time spent at work.
• 38 percent intentionally decreased the quality of their work.
• 66 percent said that their performance declined.
• 78 percent said that their commitment to the organization declined.
• 25 percent admitted to taking their frustration out on customers.
• 12 percent said that they left their job because of the uncivil treatment.

This last bullet deserves more attention. As most of the world experiences a labor shortage during The Great Resignation, toxic leadership will have a compounding effect. Organizations with toxic leaders will experience severe labor shortages and exceptionally high employee turnover.

If you are an executive or leader and are having trouble recruiting or retaining talent, it may be because you are a toxic leader.

According to Reed, here are six other ways in which organizations promote toxicity:

1. The structure changes to accommodate the toxic personality.

2. The organization tolerates the toxicity, provided the individual is productive.

3. The team climate changes when the toxic person is present.

4. The organization’s leaders are unaware of the toxic person’s behavior.

5. Less productive team meetings are tolerated.

6. The organization contributes to the toxic person getting away with counterproductive behaviors.

Although most of us can easily identify a toxic leader when we see one, it is much more difficult to recognize our own toxic behaviors. Toxic leadership behaviors include bullying subordinates and peers, choosing favorites, engaging in frantic behavior, manipulating information, and micromanaging every aspect of decision making. Frequently toxic leaders engage in these behaviors because they see their actions as necessary in order to motivate subordinates or to accomplish the mission. However, these behaviors are frequently counterproductive to organization trust, respect, and innovation.

Micro-management is one toxic leadership characteristic that is frequently debated. There are times when it is important for a leader to exert a high level of control over specific activities in their organization. While occasional micromanagement is necessary, repeated micromanagement is destructive.

Most toxic leaders micromanage because they do not trust their subordinates.

A leader that cannot trust their subordinates will never gain the trust of his or her subordinates. The fallout of micromanagement is a low-trust organization which results in low employee job satisfaction, low retention, and lack of innovation. In other words, repeated micromanagement is a toxic leadership characteristic.

Here are some other habits of toxic leaders.

• Habit 1: Unsuccessful executives see themselves and their companies as dominating their environments, not simply responding to developments in those environments.
• Habit 2: Unsuccessful executives identify so completely with the company that there is no clear boundary between their personal interests and corporate interests.
• Habit 3: Unsuccessful executives seem to have all the answers, often dazzling people with the speed and decisiveness with which they can deal with challenging issues.
• Habit 4: Unsuccessful executives make sure that everyone is 100 percent behind them, ruthlessly eliminating anyone who might undermine their efforts.
• Habit 5: Unsuccessful executives are consummate company spokespersons, often devoting the largest portion of their efforts to managing and developing the company image.
• Habit 6: Unsuccessful executives underestimate major obstacles. “They become so enamored with their vision of what they want to achieve that they overlook the difficulty of actually getting there.”
• Habit 7: Unsuccessful executives stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past.

Most of us have experienced leaders like this. While there are many books and articles that discuss the characteristics and impacts of toxic leaders, one of the areas that is especially useful in Reed’s book are the tips on how subordinates can deal with toxic leaders. Reed offers the following tips:

• Tip 1: Empathize with the boss’s feelings but do not expect empathy in return.
• Tip 2: Give the boss good ideas but always let them take the credit.
• Tip 3: Narcissistic leaders often assign subordinates more tasks than they can accomplish, so good time management skills are beneficial.

Reed concludes that,

“The sad truth of the matter is that the safest course of action when confronted with a toxic leader is to suffer in silence or seek an expeditious exit. Waiting it out under a toxic leader can be an exhausting endeavor, and prolonged exposure to stress has serious health implications.”

Overall, Tarnished: Toxic Leadership in the U.S. Military, by George E. Reed is a good book. As the title suggests, it is broadly focused towards the U.S. Military. It was a fitting professional reading assignment for the Pre-Command Course and was a good conversation starter that lead to more detailed leadership discussions. Although Tarnished is focused on the causes and symptoms of toxic leadership, it only briefly discusses the organizational change required to remedy toxic leadership. For building a high-trust organization, I would recommend The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey.

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