Prelims

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The Dark Side of Leadership: Identifying and Overcoming Unethical Practice in Organizations

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Advances in Educational Administration

Series Editor: Anthony “Tony” H. Normore

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ADVANCES IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION VOLUME 26

THE DARK SIDE OF LEADERSHIP: IDENTIFYING AND OVERCOMING UNETHICAL PRACTICE IN ORGANIZATIONS

EDITED BY

ANTHONY “TONY” H. NORMORE

California State University Dominguez Hills and International Academy of Public Safety, Carson – Los Angeles, CA, USA

JEFFREY S. BROOKS

Monash University, Victoria, Australia

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2017

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78635-500-3

ISSN: 1479-3660 (Series)

List of Contributors

Introduction

This book examines complex leadership issues in education and other related fields and its implications for leaders, policy makers, and policy implementers. As professors of educational leadership both of us discussed the need for a book of this nature for some years now that focuses on the dark side of leadership and how the dark side can be prevented. It began at the 2014 annual American Educational Research Association conference in Philadelphia, PA, where coffee shop discussions and fire-side conversations unfolded among numerous professors and practitioners. These unplanned talks focused on organizational and leadership corruption, why and how it happens, and the need to find ways to combat it. As a result a potential book was born. A follow-up dialogue resulted eight months later at the 2014 annual Convention of University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) in Washington, DC. It was at UCEA where we met as co-editors and agreed to spearhead the project. Several national and international scholars at both AERA and UCEA conferences were willing to contribute to the book. We then agreed that other disciplines of which we were familiar with could also contribute as various disciplines have much to share and learn with each other. A common theme that resonated with us focused on the various dynamics and complexities of unethical practices; how unethical practices are negotiated into policy; how these same practices are implemented; and, the impact of these practices and behaviors on organizational membership. It is with this in mind that authors in this volume examine topics related to the primary focus of the book – the dark side of leadership. We operationalize the “dark side” of leadership to mean those areas of unethical, unlawful, and unconscionable practice in which some leaders engage. Each of the 14 chapters addresses a unique aspect of such practice including, but not limited to, topics such as corruption, indifference and apathy, lying, racism, social injustice, greed, abuse of power, negligence, intentional miscommunication, promoting unqualified leaders, unethical leadership, culturally irrelevant leadership, misogyny, oppressive and discriminating leadership, and cowardice.

Of equal importance, while the focus is on the dark side of leadership our intention is to examine ways whereby the dark side might be prevented. Towards this end, authors identify the leadership problem and offer solutions to improve and/or prevent such leadership. Accordingly, each chapter is structured in a similar manner, consisting of four parts: an introduction; describe the problem; explain some approaches to leadership that would improve practice; and, a conclusion. The general content is framed by theoretical frameworks such as ethics, power, critical race theory, critical feminist theory, and social justice. Though the book is primarily focused on educational leadership and scholars in that field other sectors include scholars who write about the dark side of leadership in other fields including the criminal justice system, security organizations, and other relational-oriented fields of inquiry and practice.

In the first chapter, ““Irresponsible Leadership” and Unethical Practices in Schools: A Conceptual Framework of the “Dark Side” of Educational Leadership,” Izhar Oplatka proposes a framework of irresponsible educational leadership (IRL) that might emerge in our schools under certain circumstances. He argues that IRL is comprised of five elements: narrow view of education, a business-like view of the teacher–student relations, a Narcissist and ego-centrist view, self-centered decision making, and emotional unawareness and poor emotion regulation. The next chapter, “Anatomy of an Organizational Train Wreck: A Failed Leadership Paradigm,” is presented from the lens of Alexandro Villanueva who describes the ascendancy and incumbency of the sheriff of Los Angeles County, comparing and contrasting his leadership, ensconced in new age terminology, with that of his predecessors. Using the concept of representative bureaucracy, Villaneuva tracks organizational diversity as a performance measure, using the relative inclusion of all employee groups in the rank structure of the department and how each group fared under the administration. He presents different coping mechanisms utilized by employees confronting serious corruption issues that impacted them directly, and indirectly through the organization. Chapter, “A Consideration of Ethical Leadership in Ontario University Governance,” Heather M. Rintoul and Duncan MacLellan propose approaches to improve ethical leadership and governance that focus on servant leadership, reflection, and stewardship within the bicameral process to support greater trust amongst elected and appointed senior decision-makers in Ontario’s university sector. In chapter, “Rethinking Leadership in K-12: Ensuring that Those in Positions of Leadership Are also Positioned to Lead,” Julie Slayton addresses ways to prevent people who should not be leaders from becoming leaders. Slayton further suggests ways to create a system that cultivates leaders who both hold leadership positions and are positioned to lead.

Chapter, “Unethical Decision-Making of School Principals and Vice-Principals in the Arab Education System in Israel: The Interplay between Culture and Ethnicity,” Khalid Arar fosters better understanding of both national specificities and universal commonalities associated with unethical leadership, as well as of the cultural and social characteristics that facilitate or hinder the development of ethical leadership. Arar introduces some approaches to leadership that would improve the practice. In next chapter, Joan T. Wynne presents “Strong People Don’t Need Strong Leaders”. Wynne uses the lens of racism and American history of exploitation to examine the toxic environment that school leaders, and, ultimately, all leaders face because of society’s chosen amnesia of its bloody history, a history, she contends, we must know, for it still impacts current public policies. Within that context, she weaves stories of alternative ways of leading. Frederick C. Buskey and Mary Hemphill present chapter, “Coming in from Out of the Dark.” These authors introduce the notion of heretical leadership. They argue that heretical leadership violates the canon of educational organizations, which is to serve and uplift students. They share two stories of their own wounding in a dialogic fashion, and suggest how their experiences can be used as a vehicle for healing and working to raise awareness of and embrace new perspectives, especially in regards to the nature of organizational systems.

In chapter titled, “The destructive Effects of Distrust: Leaders as Brokers of Trust in Organizations,” Benjamin Kutsyuruba and Keith D. Walker explore the consequences for leaders of violating trust and examine how trust changes over time, as a function of different types of violations and attempts at restoration. These authors argue that because distrust may irrevocably harm organizations, leaders as moral agents need to consciously work to rebuild relationships, restore broken trust, and instill hope. The next chapter, “Global Core Leadership Competencies: A Response to “Institutional Culture” and (In)-Competence in Higher Education,” is presented by Anthony “Tony” H. Normore, Jeffrey S. Brooks, and Sara A. M. Silva. These authors argue that problems of competence grow out of institutional culture and from the way these institutions shape the profession and its members. They discuss leader quality, the shape of the leadership corps in higher education, and offer several 21st century leadership core competencies for consideration to hiring personnel so they do not repeatedly select and promote unqualified leaders who stifle creativity and encourage conformity. In chapter titled, “Performance ≠ Leadership: Shifting Institutional Research Performance,” Scott Eacott draws on shifts in an institution’s policy position and the impact that this has on researchers. Eacott explores the implications of historically mapping research performance using different metrics than were available at the time and expecting researchers to adopt alternate strategies immediately (irrespective of delays in the publication process). He further argues that such strategies are in many ways at odds with the long-term focus of building coherent and sophisticated research programs.

The next chapter by Steven R. Watt, Mitch Javidi, and Anthony “Tony” H. Normore build on some of their early work. In their chapter, “Increasing Darkness: Combining Toxic Leadership and Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA),” they extend their work by linking volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) to toxic leadership. In simple terms these authors argue that VUCA is chaos, and it falls on leaders to understand it, prepare for it, and minimize the disruptive and destabilizing effects of it. Next, Keith D. Walker and Benjamin Kutsyuruba present “The Seven Deadly Narratives of Leadership” and describes how leaders may subtly fall into rationalization, self-justification, foolishness, and callous indifference through maleficent internal narratives. Vicious (non-virtuous) thinking, inner political churnings, unconscious reinforcement of systemic evil, and hurtful ways of influencing others are explored, named and challenged. Richard Niesche introduces educational inequality in the next chapter, “Perpetuating Inequality in Education: Valuing Purpose over Process in Educational Leadership.” Niesche contends that leaders need to have issues of social justice and equity as central to the purpose of their work, for those in disadvantaged areas and schools, and also those working in more privileged sites. He examines ways that leaders can think about and act in ways that recognize and acknowledge the diversity in their schools and communities, challenge their own assumptions and beliefs, and also work towards alleviating socially unjust practices.

The book concludes with the chapter, “Why Leaders Are Not Always to Blame: From “Free Will” to Responsible Action.” Gabriele Lakomski examines the notion of “free will” both in its philosophical and everyday meaning, and argues that biological agents, such as principals, act responsibly or irresponsibly (or unethically), not on the basis of the presence or absence of metaphysical “free will,” but on the basis of the neurobiology of non-conscious decision-making processes and the constraints of the social, organizational, environments in which they work.

Anthony “Tony” H. Normore

Jeffrey S. Brooks

Editors