by Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Charles Faint
“Toxic” leaders are bad, but they’re not the worst kind of leaders out there. The absolute worst leaders are “radioactive.”
Oh, you didn’t know that there was a difference? Well, let me explain…
I’ve been blessed over the course of my career to know many excellent leaders. During my time as an infantry platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division, I had my first platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Ellery Edwards, and Captain Brett Jenkinson, my company commander. Years later, there were General Stanley McChrystal and Admiral William McRaven from my time in Joint Special Operations Command. After that were Colonels Cindy Jebb, Suzanne Nielsen, Scott Halstead, and Pat Howell from my time teaching at West Point. And there are, of course, too many others to mention.
But I’ve been in long enough to know a lot of bad leaders too. In doctrinal military terms, we call them “toxic leaders.” I’ve experienced a handful of toxic leaders in the past, but only one or two that were truly radioactive. I’ll explain the difference between the two in the following paragraphs. First, a little about toxic leaders, straight from Army doctrine (pdf):
Unfortunately, toxic leaders are so widespread in the Army that there are even specific doctrinal categories for them:
To sum up, toxic leaders are a special kind of bad boss and it is difficult to proactively stop them because they poison their own organizations and the careers of their subordinates. Radioactive leaders do the same things, but there’s a difference in both intensity and duration. That’s because radioactive leaders operate on a whole other level than toxic leaders. Whereas toxic leaders tend to only infect their organizations during the time that they are in charge, the damage that a radioactive leader causes is far more widespread.
If a toxic leader is like a tornado ripping through the organizational equivalent of a trailer park, then a radioactive leader is like Chernobyl. Toxic leaders and radioactive leaders both hurt people and organizations, but the latter is far more damaging for a far longer period of time. It’s hard enough to clean up the damage after a tornado, but it can usually be done quickly and the damage to people’s lives is usually localized. And of course, when the tornado is gone, the damage stops.
Radioactive leaders, though, cause damage that lingers, both in the organization and in the careers of that leader’s subordinates, long after the leader moves on. Even worse, their radioactive traits are carried to other units by the subordinates, who can then spread those radioactive practices and infect others in other units.
In my experience, many toxic leaders don’t really know that they are toxic. Sometimes, these types of people genuinely believe that they are, at worst “demanding” leaders with “high expectations.” Most radioactive leaders, on the other hand, know what they are doing. They seek self-advancement above all things. They often deliberately work against their subordinates or their organizations. The worst part is, paradoxically, that they are often rewarded for their malfeasance.
The best way to deal with a radioactive leader is the same way you’d deal with anything radioactive: do what you can for your subordinates, your unit, and your mission; protect yourself; stay as far away it as you can; and call in the experts to help you dispose of it in the quickest and most efficient manner possible. And whatever you do, don’t allow “toxicity” or “radioactivity” at the workplace turn you into the same kind of leader that you hate.
Editor’s Note: Lieutenant Colonel Charles Faint is a retired Army officer with seven combat deployments and more than 25 years of commissioned service. This article represents his personal opinion and is not an official position of the U.S. Army. This article first appeared in MilitaryMentors.org, and is reposted here with the permission of the original author.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
