Do you know many bosses sabotaging the employee's career advancement? Bosses eager for power, but afraid of losing it can undermine the productivity of their teams. Let's read "how to tell if your boss is sabotaging you?" and build a successful career.

The fearsome bad boss comes in many varieties. There are incompetent, the lazy, those who are always on the defensive, those who usurp the authorship of our work, those who prefer to exercise command using intimidation.

Jon Maner, a professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, has studied a very specific kind of bad boss: he deliberately sabotages his team's cohesion to protect his own leadership status.

How to tell if your boss is sabotaging you

Maner's research demonstrates that there are leaders who are able to intentionally marginalize the most productive members of their own team, to limit communication and the creation of friendly ties among their members and to compose teams with incompatible people if they think that it Will help maintain their leadership.

The danger involved in this type of bad boss is significant.

"It can lead to the disintegration of the group at a basic level," says Maner. "If the team is made up of people who do not get along and are not allowed to communicate effectively with each other, then, in reality, the group ceases to exist."

Maner and his colleague Charleen Case, a doctoral student at Kellogg School, observed that power-hungry leaders (those motivated by domination) more often undermined group communication and cohesion than those who are avid for respect (those motivated by prestige). These power-hungry leaders were more inclined to behave in this way when they were told that the group hierarchy was unstable and that they could lose their place at the summit. And they used to undermine cohesion by isolating the most qualified member of the team.

The irony, of course, is that the person who exhibits this behavior is the one who has the most personal interest in fostering collaboration so that the group is productive and who should know how to do it best.
Also read: 10 Questions To Ask Before You Quit Your Job

Watch out for the power-hungry boss who feels threatened

Maner and Case carried out a study in which they made university students believe that they were going to lead a group in the execution of a verbal task. The higher the category score, the more rewards it would earn.

Participants were told that one of the members of their team was highly skilled in this task. They were then assigned to one of three experimental conditions. In the first, they were told that, as leaders, they would oversee the work and distribute the prizes among the group. In the second, they said they would supervise the work and assign the awards, but also that the hierarchy was variable and that another could become a leader. The third experimental condition was that of an egalitarian control group where there was no leader and in which all members would share the prizes equally.
Also read: 5 Things the Successful Leaders Do Every Day

The researchers sought to answer two main questions: who are they and in what situations are leaders who sabotage communication and cohesion in their group even though they know that cohesion improves their functioning? And will they often isolate the most qualified member of the team?

The researchers observed, as had been predicted that leaders who were in a variable hierarchy and who had previously scored high on an evaluation of their desires for power were the most likely to sabotage their group. And that his favorite way of doing it was chasing the most qualified member.

In one experiment, these leaders put the expert to work in pairs with a sick colleague who knew that he would not get along with him. In another experiment, he was put to work alone in a room, even after being told that working closely with his peers would increase his performance.

"I am amazed how willing these leaders are to undermine the success of the group for the sake of its own power," says Maner. "These talented and skilled members of the group are most capable of contributing to its success. But instead of seeing them as allies of great value, they are rather a threat to leaders fearful of losing their power. "

How to avoid such bad behaviors at work

These kinds of interactions are not merely theoretical; Are given in offices daily. In fact, Maner's investigation had its origin precisely in a friend's complaints about the misconduct of his boss.

What can organizations do, what they want is for their teams to function as cohesively as possible, to avoid this type of sabotage from above?

One of the keys is to take measures so that the labor security of the leaders depend on the success of their group and to know that they are going to have to account for their actions, says Maner.

"Knowing that their decisions are public and that they can have consequences for the support they receive, I think it would help correct this wicked behavior," Maner suggests.

Another proposal is for organizations to institutionalize lines of communication and collaboration between teams, so so terrible boss has difficulties to hinder them.

How to make managers feel secure in the stability of their power is a more delicate matter, since organizations need to strike a balance between creating an environment in which administrators feel confident and the ability to change leaders when Circumstances.

Maner proposes to build periods of stability, perhaps two or three years, in which the managers know that their positions are safe and interspersed with times when it is known that the person in charge can change if necessary, something like the system Of presidential elections every four years.

"What could help leaders to perform to the fullest would be to know that they will not lose their position today or tomorrow, that they can really try to carry forward their future plan, whatever it may be, and if it does not work, it will not work," He says. "But at least they will have had the opportunity to put it into practice."

How to find the best leaders

It also raises the question of finding leaders who are more interested in gaining prestige and respect than power. This is particularly challenging since many of those who ambition for power select themselves to hold leadership positions, while those who seek fame may be happier working in lesser positions.

"For organizations, the key is to identify these people and elevate them to leadership positions, whether they request it or not, because they will not always strive as much as the power hungry to conquer high-ranking positions in their organization," says Maner.

But Maner warns that these leaders motivated by prestige should not be seen as a panacea. "Our work has painted a magnanimous portrait of those prestige-oriented leaders," says Maner, "but I think that's probably an oversimplification."

In future research, Maner hopes to explore how prestige-led leaders make their decisions when they are forced to choose between what will make the group happy and what's best for the organization.

"There are preliminary indications that they are capable of undermining the goals of the group to maintain their prestige in the eyes of their subordinates," he says.

Ultimately, the purpose of research is to help organizations function quickly and productively.

"The ultimate goal is to learn how to help groups perform better," he says. "That means selecting more competent leaders and helping them give their best. If we can understand what induces leaders to act in a way that harms their organization, we will be better armed to combat those behaviors.