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Leadership
A Boss Intoxicated By The Sound Of His Own Voice
Dealing With A Toxic Leader
Posted November 16, 2015
As an Executive Coach I worked with a boss who became intoxicated with the sound of his own voice. When he spoke on the phone to his administrative assistant it sounded as if Mr. Joshua Jordan was delivering the Sermon on the Mount. Every word was terribly important. He reveled in his word choice, inflection and clever use of vocabulary. He noticed that the average, mortal colleagues around him did not quite grasp the full brunt of his extraordinary messages. When mere employees attempted to respond or get a word in edge wise they were rebuffed and rebuked by this eloquent, arrogant and somewhat delusional CEO.
Mr. Jordan (JJ) had little interest in what his employees had to say. He seemed to gloat in victory when he berated a high ranking engineer to “shut up” and “check your facts” at a performance meeting. Joshua’s impatience and attack mode led him to consistently interrupt his direct reports and colleagues to the point where he was being avoided like a tsunami. Jordan’s communication was a one way missile shot out of his CEO canon and aimed toward target employees. He shot messages down from the top of his executive mountain. Command and control was the leadership norm 90% of the work week. Occasionally a middle manager had the audacity to attempt to engage Jordan in a dialogue. Two way communication was quite alien to Mr. Joshua Jordan. He found it astounding that plebeians wanted to engage in two way conversations. Surely they did not grasp that communication trickled down to the lesser people and was not something to be bantered back and forth such as a tennis volley. It required a certain pedigree and eloquence to speak boldly in public and this CEO had a corner on the market when it came to elevated speaking skills. There was more than a hint of narcissism in Jordan’s self-adulation.
One engineer dared to come forth in a public company forum with some wild idea about a free flow of communication and empowering subordinates to have a voice. Mr. Jordan responded with a loathsome look. He made a signal and gesture to the engineer to zip up his lips. Subordinates quickly learned that in the eyes of their rattled, arrogant leader that feedback and schemes for employee empowerment were for losers and liberals.
As a wildly confident and outspoken leader, J.J. was dictatorial and one dimensional. He frequently amused himself with audio and video tapings of his own presentations. Communication in this organizational culture was under the complete and utter rule of this enlightened CEO. Jordan had no intention of following the politically correct agenda that he had learned as an MBA student - that of being inclusive, conversational, empowering and congenial. His blueprint for communication was that of master and servant. When subordinates spoke up in the workplace they were typically told to “hush up and speak when spoken to.” The CEO publicly presented himself as on par with royalty. Emotional intelligence was for classroom discussion. In Jordan’s distorted view a true leader such as himself had full discretionary powers over whether to celebrate or suppress emotional intelligence and empowerment. Clearly, this CEO squashed such silly endeavors in the bud.
I was impressed by the depth and severity of the CEO’s outrageous display in a Corporate 100 workplace. It was not my first time working with a tyrant. Several of my more explosive coaching assignments were triggered by grievances against corporate dictators who imposed unspoken gag orders and demanded minimal communication from their subordinates. They keep a tight stranglehold on internal communications. But Jordan was the supreme violator. I also knew that eventually some employees will speak up. They will rise up and rebel.
The voices of opposition grew in numbers and volume. Joshua Jordan increasingly faced a backlash. Subordinates, however, did not risk a face to face showdown with JJ but eleven employees did file grievances once they were assured of complete anonymity and protection. Fear and loathing was on the rise. Bad behavior originating with the CEO escalated and metastasized. Moreover, Jordan’s intolerance for the independent voices of employees was not limited to face to face encounters. He also terrorized email communications as he demanded an outrageously polite and subservient tone and word choice that did not allow for any displays of personal interpretation, opinion, intuition or anything remotely outside the box. Condescending, manipulative and overall destructive behavior centered in the CEO spread like a virus across leadership and throughout the organization. What started out as a closed minded, bully of a CEO was transformed into a wave of toxic leadership blanketing the entire organizational system.
This was not just a case in bad manners or questionable workplace behavior. It rather knocked on the door of organizational pathology. Lacking a diagnosis or treatment and subjected to a malevolent leader employees desperately looked for relief. They were failed by their human resources and employee assistance programs. They looked for alternative channels of conflict resolution and soon found their way to the social media. Anonymously entering their complaints onto the internet and beyond employees found a temporary outlet. Pain needs to be expressed. Organizational pain will eventually be heard despite attempts at stifling employees’ voices utilized by the likes of a Joshua Jordan.
The executive board finally got past the one-sided and skewed messages blasted into their ear by CEO Jordan. As a result of grievances filed and increasingly negative press emerging on the international news and social media it was no longer plausible to perpetuate denial or retreat. HR and the EAP appeared to be caught up in internal politics and at best had been ineffective. The only option left was to turn to an outside, independent agent and consultant to assess and intervene. If nothing else, it was a step in the right direction and at least on the surface began to communicate that the organization cared.
Once contacted I proceeded with an organizational diagnosis and a proposed treatment that moved the CEO Joshua Jordan out of a direct leadership role with enraged employees. He was relieved of his front office duties and moved to another company location where he continued on in a part time, back office and advisory capacity divorced and apart from employee contact. Executive coaching and psychotherapy was on the agenda for the CEO and the organization. Documentation of the threatening behavior perpetrated included numerous interviews with employees and video footage of Jordan in action during meetings with engineers and mid-level managers. Despite an initial wall of denial and outrage the CEO begrudgingly turned somewhat amenable to assessment and intervention. The elitist leader and masterful manipulator was running out of options. It was not altogether surprising that Mr. Jordan did in fact have a history of adult ADHD. He had zero patience for employee voices. This was only part of the story. His vocal outbursts and loud, demeaning treatment of employees also pointed toward a long standing destructive pattern of angry public displays and an inability to publicly manage his emotions.
Clearly, the entire organization had been privy to and entangled in Jordan’s destructive behavior over an extended period of time and quietly attempted to tolerate it as long as humanly possible. Despite multiple attempts at reasoning, grievances filed by employees, and attempts at interventions by HR and the EAP, nothing seemed to work. The disturbances originating with Joshua Jordan were beyond rational and logical appeals and he proved obstinate and unresponsive to reasonable requests. The repetitive, predictable nature of the public infractions opened the door for a differential diagnosis to rule out psychopathology. In this case my assessment initially confirmed and upgraded his longstanding adult ADHD diagnosis. The ADHD was part of a dual diagnosis that included an additional assessment of Intermittent Explosive Disorder with further indications of excessive narcissism falling short, however, of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Since Jordan was in a long term leadership role it was appropriate to assess that the ADHD and Intermittent Explosive Disorder was a dual diagnosis applying to both Jordan and his department and the organization-as-a-whole. In this case there were numerous signs that the individual pathology has in fact in-part metastasized to the organizational system. Accordingly, treatment required individual and system interventions.
Once diagnosed there were no magic bullets for behavioral change or immediate remedies available for the organizational pain and disarray. It was rather a case of exploring individual and collective treatment options with the CEO and the organization. Since the determination was that Jordan did in fact pose a potential threat to employees this resulted in an assessment of “danger to others (DTO).” As a result, this DTO diagnosis was discretely communicated to key individuals within the organization as part of a comprehensive assessment, treatment and accommodation plan.
Once removed from his public leadership post (and ushered into a behind the scenes position) the organization required follow-up to address the issues and provide new alternatives through coaching. Within weeks a replacement was designated for Jordan and the healing process was underway. Motivation and productivity faltered at first but within fifteen weeks it began to climb. Ten out of the eleven grievances were internally resolved within two months and the remaining grievance was settled through attorneys and fell outside of my scope and jurisdiction. The overall case and situation is still being monitored and the former CEO remains in an informal advising and IT role “behind the organizational curtain” and out of the public eye. Jordan increasingly recognizes that the conflict he experienced with employees was to a large degree related to his destructive behavior in the workplace.
It all started with the CEO’s intoxication with the sound of his own voice. But it did not begin and end with this self-infatuation. The trail extended far and wide. Individual pathology metastasized into organizational psychopathology. CEO Jordan’s fascination with his perception of his own divine speaking voice and exalted leadership skills was accompanied by extraordinary intolerance for other voices and minds in the organization. Jordan celebrated himself and feverishly, relentlessly diminished colleagues and subordinates. Once faced with words emanating from what he deemed as unworthy mouths he sweltered up and could not control his emotions. Jordan seemed to go haywire, out of control, he lost the manual and the remote that controlled his own behavior. As a result, employees were shattered and an organizational system strained to resist their leader’s repugnant decrees.
Individual treatment of the CEO and therapeutic teamwork throughout the organization was part of the initial intervention and remedy for companywide conflict resolution and healing. The cancer in the form of a toxic CEO had to be eliminated as swiftly as possible. With appropriate treatment individuals and the organization as a whole are now on the road to repair. Positive transformation of Joshua Jordan is a work still in progress. The CEO’s permanent removal or reintegration into his company has yet to be determined. The organization is beginning to take a deep breath. Slowly, engineers are relearning that they are able speak out freely. The new CEO is refreshingly tolerant and emotionally intelligent. A measure of freedom has been restored.
