Leadership

A positive leader creates a team on which people want to work with each other toward a common vision.

A negative leader uses divisive us-versus-them tactics or creates scapegoats. It’s foundational social psychology that uses “in-group” identity for social cohesion. The problem is that it hurts people. In many, many cases, it leads to harassment and even violence.

As leaders, we need to create an environment on our team in which everyone feels safe, welcome, and included. Communicate your expectations that everyone will treat each other well. Emphasize the fact that we are all on the same team. Don’t set up internal competitions like “the top performer gets a huge bonus, and the bottom performer gets fired.” These dynamics incentivize sabotaging and undermining coworkers. Instead, give bonuses to every person (or team) who reaches a set benchmark (and additional rewards for reaching higher benchmarks), so that people are incentivized to be more productive on the things that actually help the bottom line.

(image source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=838717548434018&set=a.162944452678001)