Impacts of Your Relationship

In accordance with U.S. law and Army regulations, Army leaders are expected to take measures to safeguard the morale, physical well-being, and general welfare of their fellow officers, enlisted Soldiers, and Civilians. This includes addressing counterproductive leadership when it occurs. However, it can sometimes be challenging to do so.

Your relationship to the leader makes a difference in how you identify and address counterproductive leadership behaviors. Select each button to learn more.

When identifying counterproductive leadership in your subordinates, you can’t rely on causal occurrences, especially if you want to prevent negative behaviors from becoming more serious. Strategies for collecting information include:

  • Battlefield Circulation: Take a pulse of the unit by getting out of the office, walking around, talking to Soldiers and civilians, and looking for the general indicators you just explored on the previous page.
  • Open Door Policy: If you’re in a senior leadership position, make sure you clearly state your open door policy. Be welcoming so that individuals are comfortable bringing issues to you. Act on what they tell you.
  • Informal Sensing Sessions: You can hold these sessions either with immediate subordinates or skip-sessions with leaders and subordinates two levels down.
  • Command Climate Surveys: Command climate surveys, while not a direct assessment of an individual leader, can also provide clues as to leader behaviors, either positive or counterproductive, that are influencing the climate.

At times you may observe your peer leaders in situations that a superior might not witness. Your relationship with your peer puts you on equal footing in terms of position, and by virtue of this, you may have a more friendly working relationship. This may mean that you are in a better position to informally address a behavior or ask a question in a way that generates less defensiveness.

When determining whether to intervene, look for overt instances of your peer demonstrating counterproductive leadership in front of you (e.g., berating subordinates). If you see these signs, consider sitting down with your peer to share specific examples of what you observed.

As a subordinate, you may be a direct recipient of or have witnessed counterproductive leadership. Thus, it may be easy for you to identify the behaviors directly. When these behaviors occur, pay attention to factors that may be contributing to the behaviors. For example, situational factors like tight deadlines and who the superior is receiving feedback from could be contributing to the behaviors.