A third way to decide whether leadership matters is to ask the consumers of
leadership (i.e., a manager’s direct reports). Several patterns of leadership
behavior are associated with subordinates’ performance and satisfaction (cf.
Bass, 1990; Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 1993; Yukl, 1989). Conversely, reactions
to inept leadership include turnover, insubordination, industrial sabotage, and
malingering. R. Hogan, Raskin, and Fazzini (1990) noted that organizational
climate studies from the mid-1950s to the present routinely show that 60% to 75%
of the employees in any organization—no matter when or where the survey was
completed and no matter what occupational group was involved—report that
the worst or most stressful aspect of their job is their immediate supervisor.
Good leaders may put pressure on their people, but abusive and incompetent
management create billions of dollars of lost productivity each year. Dixon’s
(1976) book, The Psychology of Military Incompetence, provides a graphic and
almost unbearably painful account of the consequences of bad leadership in the
military. Reactions to inept leadership can be extreme. In the spring of 1993
articles in several major newspapers (e.g., the New York Times, the Washington
Post) noted that poor first-line supervision was ass