How Dunning-Kruger Effect Can Ruin Your Organization
Learn how to spot, cope with, and prevent the negative impacts of autocratic and narcissistic managers who overestimate their own abilities and underestimate others.
One of my friends and a former colleague got an opportunity in a top Fortune 500 company. Started to work over there. He was very happy primarily and even celebrated with great arrangement. apart from that as it was onsite. Hence, he was getting almost double his previous normal compensation. He had a promising career ahead of him and was looking forward to climbing the corporate ladder. Because Extra allowance plus main salary.
Looks! cool right? Yeah! it looks really really cool and accentuating. But, after a few months, he stopped communicating with me and other of my friend circles. Primarily, we thought he was just getting busy; so might not getting time to be in touch. it’s fine!
Time passes more a few months, then suddenly received a call from his family and he was admitted to the psychological clinic for a few days to recover from trauma. It was quite bit shocking for me and all his known people. But, gradually, things started to unwrap as he expressed the majority of the things to us and it was a toxic work culture and autocratic and narcissistic boss.
I know what you are thinking. It’s a common thing. Right! But, we don’t know what can happen to anyone tomorrow. So, it’s better to be careful. He could able to fight legally as he documented everything silently’ which was definitely a brave job anyone can do in such a scenario.
Let’s see some Global Stats
Workplace Bullying Institute:
61% of the respondents reported being bullied by someone who had authority over them
Frontiers in Psychology:
35% of the employees who worked for a narcissistic leader reported experiencing emotional exhaustion
33% of the employees who worked for a narcissistic leader reported experiencing depersonalization
BBC Worklife:
The Managerial Mirage - Unmasking the Narcissistic Mindset! Exploring the Dunning-Kruger Effect
The Dunning-Kruger Effect, was first introduced by Cornell University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger in their 1999 paper “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”
The theory says:
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias that makes incompetent or inexperienced people overconfident and unaware of their own flaws. They also underrate and ignore the skills of others. This is because they lack the metacognitive skills to assess their own performance and knowledge accurately.
Let’s drill down the facts according to the Principle introduced by David and Justin to do Root Cause analysis behind the Generation of Narsasctic managers:
- The Dunning-Kruger Effect leads to overconfidence and ignorance. Autocratic Managers who suffer from the Dunning-Kruger Effect tend to overestimate their own skills and abilities, especially when they are incompetent or inexperienced; simultaneously they start to underestimate the skills and abilities of others, especially those who are more competent or experienced. That's why show a high amount of rigidity against receiving feedback or improvement from any other person.
- The Dunning-Kruger Effect creates a negative impact on the organization. Associations of this kind of people with the leadership board can have a detrimental effect on the performance, morale, and culture of the organization. They often take wrong decisions due to ignoring the right skills needed and facilitating wrong promotions or stopping the right ones. Eventually, that leads to a toxic work environment by being arrogant, ignorant, or incompetent. They often suffer from a God complex or Superiority Complex kind of psychological disorder that disrespect, demoralize, or frustrates their subordinates, peers, or superiors.
An Example of toxic management:
You can see that the person is enjoying misbehaving with his reportee; but officially they all are colleagues. This incident happened in one Indian bank. This example is share how much psychologically lethal toxic work culture can be.
Another example where the company locks the gate and forbids them to leave the office. Next-level employment.
Naah! This thing can’t be called employment in any way.
This is pure enslavement and imprisonment.
How they are born:
- Step 1: They perform well in a lower-level position. Some managers may start their careers as competent and successful employees in lower-level positions. They may have the skills and abilities required for that role, and they may receive positive feedback and recognition for their performance.
- Step 2: They get promoted to a higher-level position. Some managers may get promoted to a higher-level position as a reward for their performance or as a result of a lack of better candidates. They may also seek promotion as a way of increasing their status, income, or power.
- Step 3: They fail to adapt to the new demands of the position. After a certain level of promotion, they may fail to adjust to the new responsibilities and expectations of their higher-level position. They may lack the skills, knowledge, or experience needed for effective management or leadership. They may also face new challenges, such as dealing with complex problems, managing diverse teams, or communicating with different stakeholders.
This knowledge stuff and communication thing are highly correlated.
- Step 4: Neither they can go up or down the corporate ladder: At, this point they get stuck at a level for a longer time. Because they also face challenges to remain in the same position to maintain roles and responsibilities due to their own performance. So, promotion eventually gets stopped and demotion is not possible from the company’s end. Now, they start to create and spread toxicity to maintain their position to avoid slipping downward of the ladder.
How to deal with them?
- Step 1: Remain calm and professional. One way to cope with working for an autocratic and narcissistic manager is to avoid engaging with them in confrontation and chaos. They may try to provoke, intimidate, or manipulate you, but you should not let them get under your skin. Instead, you should maintain your composure and professionalism, and focus on your work.
- Step 2: Communicate clearly and assertively. You should be specific about your expectations, responsibilities, and boundaries, and not let them take credit for your work or blame you for their mistakes. You should also document your communication and accomplishments, and keep evidence of their behavior in case you need to report or confront them.
- Step 3: Flatter them strategically. Another way to cope with working for an autocratic and narcissistic manager is to flatter them strategically. Autocratic and narcissistic managers crave admiration and validation; which will help you to borrow some time to collect all the evidence before taking any actions.
- Step 4: Seek support and feedback. Start to connect with colleagues and family members and lawyers on how to deal with it legally and ethically. Collect all grievance email IDs and contacts and SPOC persons of your office, inform a local legal authority without taking immediate action(have a copy of this for official escalation), and submit all the documents to the company HR/grievance body and cc every board members and C-suite executives, in the email to escalate the matter with higher scale.
None will entertain you until you have evidence. Always, collect evidence before confronting the grievance body. Always, make your lawsuit ready separately. Many of the time organizations support their autocratic managers. Cause, they understand only KPI/OKR/ROI.
Takeaways can be only one thing “Save your life by leaving such an environment as soon as possible”. After all, mental health matters a lot. Nothing can come upward of anyone’s priority list.
Life is not a video game to play the same match with many chances.
P.S: Above mentioned characters, persons, and organization names are used to show a real-life example without any intention to harm or defame any organization, brand or person.
