The Dark Side of Leadership

We've seen the enemy…

…and it is us.

A speaker at a development programme I attended years ago (when I was still finding my feet as a manager at a large telecoms firm) said this. He was talking about the worst behaviours we see in organisations - and how any of us can display them.

That phrase has stuck with me ever since. Now, over a decade later, I find myself coming back to it often.

Take this list.

It came from a group of aspiring managers I spent a day with this week. They were brilliant - thoughtful, honest, and quick to name what great leadership looks like. And what poor leadership feels like.

The left side? That's what the best managers they'd worked for did. The right side? Well, that's the other lot.

(Forgive some of the phrasing - they were all speaking in their second or third language, and I wanted to capture their words as they said them.)

Here's what got me, though.

Too many of those behaviours on the right? I've done them. Not once. Not twice. More times than I'd like to admit.

The micromanaging when I was anxious about a deadline. The taking credit when I was desperate to prove my worth. The cancelled one-to-one because "something more urgent came up." That snappy email reply I fired off before I'd had my coffee.

I wasn't a bad manager pretending to be good. I was tired. Stretched. Under pressure. Distracted. Human.

And that's the uncomfortable truth, isn't it? We don't wake up planning to be the manager on the right-hand side. But when we're running on empty, it just… happens.

So what do we do about it?

Well, here's what we talked about in the session: you've got to check in with yourself. Regularly. Not in some performative wellness-app kind of way, but properly. How's my energy right now? What's my headspace like today? Am I present, or am I just going through the motions?

Because pretending everything's fine when it isn't? That's when the right-hand side sneaks out. The throwaway comment. The impatient tone. The person sat in "your" seat who suddenly becomes the target of all your pent-up frustration (yes, I've been that petty).

Self-care isn't indulgent. It's not a luxury or something that's just trendy right now. It's the difference between being the leader you want to be and the one you become when you're burnt out.

You might fully intend to be a left-hand-side manager. But if you're not looking after yourself, those right-hand behaviours will find you. And your team will know. They see it. They feel it. It shapes their week - sometimes their whole experience of work.

So here's the question I'm sitting with (and the one I left the group with):

Where are you right now? What do you need to stay in the right frame of mind to create the space your team deserves?

Because many leaders I speak to struggle with this. Not because they don't care, but because they're trapped in environments that don't give them the space to look after themselves either.

If that's you, you're not alone. And you don't have to keep running on fumes.

The best version of you is still there. Your team needs it. And honestly? So do you.