Behaviours That Bring Down Leaders
Aggressive behaviour can ruin relationships, professionally as well as personally.
Ameeting was to start exactly at 9am. Except for Pravesh, everyone else was present and that included our main boss,
Ravendra.
Mr Ravendra, who looked quite upset because of the delay.
In that same moment the door of the conference room opened and we all saw Pravesh enter nervously. He looked around and the moment he noticed our boss, Ravendra, he sincerely apologised for his delay.
Just as he was trying to explain the reason for his late arrival our boss interrupted him.
“This is total indiscipline!
“It has been more than 15 minutes I have been waiting for the meeting to start.
“I will not tolerate this kind of indiscipline from you in future.” He almost screamed aggressively at Pravesh.
“Yes, sir” he responded and walked to his chair. He looked completely humiliated.
Pravesh had to make a presentation about his clients which he did in a very demotivated manner.
For most of us, Pravesh was actually a very punctual and disciplined employee in our department.
Yes, it is true that he had turned up late for the meeting, but was it right for Mr Ravendra to scold and humiliate him in front of everyone? From that day, my own respect for my boss began to steadily decline and I was not the only one.
A few weeks later I saw three of my colleagues tendered their resignations.
Responses
During the exit interviews they revealed to the HR manager their reasons.
“Sir, we are very happy with our professional responsibilities, but are extremely unhappy with the aggressive and arrogant style of leadership of our boss, Mr Ravendra. “Even for a small mistake rather than correcting and guiding us he yells and at times even shouts cuss words at us, that too, in front our colleagues”
The HR manager heard all this and was at a loss for words. He knew that the organisation was losing three extremely able and competent executives just because of a leader’s arrogant and aggressive attitude.
Importance of control
The way in which we must be able to control our aggression and convert it into assertiveness is important.
Aggressive behaviour can ruin relationships, professionally as well as personally.
The first thing is learning to not react, but respond to situations.
In that first example about Pravesh coming late to the meeting, the better thing would have been for Mr Ravendra to control his anger.
However, after that meeting, he could have had a one-on-one talk with Pravesh, to understand the reasons for his late arrival to the meeting.
By shouting at him in the beginning, the boss completely demoralised and demotivated Pravesh and punctured his positive and proactive attitude with which he had planned to make his presentation. As I got promoted and became a team leader, there were many instances where some of my team members and juniors would make errors and mistakes or would be non-punctual.
But I knew I would control my emotions and not get aggressive, or angry.
Calm and composed
I had learned to be calm and composed and controlled while dealing with my team members and it really helped in generating a very positive team bond between all of us! Leaders must rise with the three C’s (calmness, composure and control) and not fall down with the three A’s (aggression, arrogance and anger).