Consequences of Abuse and Corruption

 

The excessive power and accompanying corruption of leaders can lead to serious consequences for organization. The most common consequence is poor decision making. Leaders’ lack of relevant information because of their distance from others in the organization puts them in the danger of poor decision making. Employees filter information, avoid giving bad news, and hide their mistakes, providing an overly rosy picture of the organization. Because of the compliance of followers, leaders might see followers as dependent and incapable of autonomous behavior and decisions. Leaders then come to see themselves as the source of all events in the organization and conditions. Leaders than come to see themselves as the source of all events in the organization and consequently might rely on persuasion and more on coercive methods to get followers to comply. Leaders come to see their subordinates as less than competent and therefore unable to function without the leader's strong guidance. The leader continues to maintain total control, not allowing followers’ input into decisions. The followers comply and encourage such behavior, further proving the leader the futility of power sharing. The leader sees such compliance as evidence of subordinates’ weakness and incompetence, thereby centralizing decision making even further.

 

The development of a separate sense of morality based on all the other factors allows the leaders to easily fall into unethical decision making and actions. Such leaders come to believe that regular rules simply do not apply to them.

 

Solutions

As organizations try to reduce if not stop power and corruption, a clear message of the value on ethical behavior and integrity is essential. Leaders who know that they will be held accountable for their actions are much more likely to consider consequences of their actions and act thoughtfully.

 

The closer the leader is to day-to-day activities of followers and the organization's customers, the less likely is leader corruption. In addition, the more independent followers are, the less likely they are to contribute - intentionally or unintentionally - to the corruption cycle. If a person’ s pay, promotion, and career depend entirely on the manager's subjective opinion and rating, a person is more likely to comply with that manager.

 

By opening up the decision-making process to outsiders, an organization can get an objective view to prevent inbreeding. Outsiders can bring a fresh perspective that can break the corruption cycle. For example, the presence of outsiders on a company board of directors contributes to keeping executive salaries more in line with company performance.