Most of us don't spend much time thinking about what good leadership is supposed to look like. We spend our lives living under it, complaining about it, and imagining how we'd do things differently if we were in charge.
After all, everyone thinks their boss is an asshole. Why should we expect anything different?
But there's a problem with that thinking. If you've never experienced good leadership, how are you supposed to recognize it?
And if bad leadership is all you've ever known, how do you avoid becoming the very thing you've spent your life complaining about?
I spent much of my professional life inside a rigid hierarchical structure where leadership was defined by title, ownership, and favour. Respect flowed upward, authority was rarely questioned, and submission was often mistaken for loyalty.
There was a Japanese proverb frequently quoted:
The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
It's a peculiar philosophy for an organization supposedly dedicated to developing confidence, courage, and self-respect.
Apparently, those qualities were encouraged right up until you demonstrated them.
I remember spending hours compiling a list of more than 300 names for an event. The names came from different sources, in different formats, with inconsistent spelling conventions, punctuation, and ordering. Some were first name, last name. Others were reversed. Some had commas, others didn't.
This was before AI could sort out that kind of administrative nonsense in seconds.
I made one mistake.
Two people had identical names, and I assumed one was a duplicate. I omitted it.
The error was caught, corrected, and the event went smoothly. No harm done.
Except that I was publicly admonished and demeaned in front of my peers for what amounted to a clerical error.
What did I learn?
Not how to become a better administrator. Not how to improve the process.
I learned that volunteering to take on additional responsibility wasn't worth the risk.
Before long, I found a way to remove that responsibility from my duties altogether.
Congratulations. Leadership had successfully turned someone willing to contribute into someone unwilling to volunteer.
And that's the problem with toxic leadership. It doesn't necessarily produce better people or better results. It produces people who become very good at protecting themselves.
Why offer an idea when it might be interpreted as a challenge? Why volunteer when a mistake could become a public spectacle? Why take a risk when doing nothing is considerably safer?
Eventually, an organization develops a culture in which everyone does exactly what they're told and very little more.
Then leadership complains that nobody shows initiative.
Funny how that works.
But I've come to believe that we spend far too much time treating toxic leadership as a problem of individuals rather than examining the systems those individuals create.
An asshole boss is one thing. An organization that rewards assholes is something else entirely.
A toxic leader can leave tomorrow, but the culture they created can survive for generations. People learn the rules, adapt their behaviour, and eventually pass those same expectations along when they find themselves in positions of authority.
The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
Eventually, nobody's putting their hand up.
And the people holding the hammers call that discipline.
This past week, I had the privilege of attending a training and selection course with Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services.
It was demanding. The schedule was relentless, expectations were high, and not everyone made it to the final day.
There was no sugar-coating the requirements. Nobody was holding our hands or pretending that everyone would succeed simply because they showed up.
But something was different.
Leadership was rooting for us.
They wanted us to succeed. They wanted us to meet the standards. They wanted us to demonstrate that we could become valuable members of their organization.
And when people struggled, they weren't made to feel small.
It occurred to me that I'd spent years confusing demanding leadership with toxic leadership, largely because I'd so often experienced the two together.
But they're not the same thing.
You can hold people to extraordinarily high standards without humiliating them. You can demand accountability without creating fear. You can exercise authority without constantly reminding everyone that you have it.
And perhaps most importantly, you can allow someone to fail without making them feel like a failure.
One of our guest speakers was Phil Jewell, author of The Irrelevant Leader.
When I walked into the conference room, there was a copy of his book waiting at every seat.
I looked at the title and immediately understood it.
The Irrelevant Leader.
I don't think I'd ever seen the word irrelevant used so beautifully.
Because what greater accomplishment could there be for a leader than developing people to the point where they no longer need you?
Not because you have nothing left to offer, but because you've given them the knowledge, confidence, and independence to succeed without constantly seeking your approval.
Compare that with a leadership structure built around dependence, where every decision requires permission, every opportunity is granted as a favour, and every challenge to authority is treated as a threat.
One creates capable people.
The other creates obedient ones.
I've spent years in leadership positions myself, and I certainly haven't always gotten it right. I've made mistakes, misjudged situations, and undoubtedly disappointed people who depended on me.
But perhaps recognizing that you're not the perfect leader is the first step toward becoming a good one.
Because leadership shouldn't be about protecting your authority. It should be about creating something that can thrive without you.
An organization might survive under toxic leadership. It might even be profitable. But how much talent, creativity, ambition, and initiative does it sacrifice along the way?
How many people have learned to keep their heads down rather than risk having them knocked off?
And how many good ideas never saw the light of day because someone with a title felt threatened by the person who had them?
Maybe we need to stop asking whether someone is a strong leader and start asking what kind of organization their leadership leaves behind.
One where people are afraid to make mistakes?
Or one where people aren't afraid to try?
I walked into that conference room and saw a book about becoming irrelevant.
For the first time in a long time, irrelevance sounded like something worth aspiring to.
After all, the best leaders don't need to be the tallest nail. They make sure everyone else has a chance to stand up.