Identifying Toxic Leaders And Using Empathy Maps For Effective Leadership

How you can identify fake leaders and how I address false leadership situations with empathy maps and non-judgmental conversations.

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First of all, I would like to announce the winner of the survey contest launched a few weeks ago. Congratulations to

Amy Mitchell

🥳🥳 Your prize it’s on the way! I hope this will help you with your future projects 🎁📘 like your newsletter.

Thanks also to all of you who participated! 👏 Let’s continue with today’s post!

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The Leadership word everywhere…

These days, it is becoming more and more common to hear the word leadership and use it for everything all too often at work. And for jobs where we interact with other teams and many stakeholders, it is almost a norm to include it on our resumes.

Sometimes, you even come across people who believe that being a Scrum Master or a Product Owner, gives them the power to control everything around them, making them focus more on the political and egocentric aspects instead of bringing real value to the product, company or even their job performance. 

Personally, I’ve seen these behaviors many times:

"Hey, I'm the Product Owner, that means I OWN everything. No one touches my backlog and I keep track of developers very closely.”

“Oh I’m the Scrum Master, that means I’m in charge of the whole team and I do SCRUM as SAFe dictates…”

And sometimes these individuals hiding behind the mask of leadership will brag to you that they have years of experience performing their role with excellence.

The problem with these figures/roles is the self-identification of leadership. Yes, some frameworks promote it, and maybe their intention is not a selfish one. But people tend to forget what it means to be a true leader.

Yet, when it comes to talking about the value these “leaders” bring to the product and the company’s quarterly results, the room is very quiet. In addition, most of the time, the ones who pay the price for their false leadership are engineers.

Let’s see some of the common patterns of fake leadership and how you can identify them.

How to Identify Fake Leadership

So how can you tell if you are going through false leadership even with your boss or manager? Simply put, there are behaviors and some patterns that you will detect when you talk to these people. Here's a list of common toxic behaviors I've encountered myself at work:

• 🚩 Lack of Empathy and Emotional Intelligence: Toxic leaders may not connect with or understand team members' emotions, ignoring their problems and creating a hostile environment.

• 🚩 Frequent Lying or Inconsistent Expectations: Dishonesty and shifting expectations undermine trust, causing confusion and making team members question their judgment.

• 🚩 Promoting a Culture of Fear: Using fear instead of respect to motivate, resulting in a stifled and uncreative workplace where risk-taking is discouraged.

• 🚩 Ignoring Scrum Values (If Working in Scrum): Disregarding core Scrum values like commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect, showing a lack of respect and openness.

• 🚩 Violating Scrum Roles and Responsibilities: Overstepping defined Scrum roles, such as a Scrum Master controlling rather than facilitating, or a Product Owner over controlling the backlog.

• 🚩 Lack of Transparency: Withholding information, manipulating outcomes, or being non-transparent about backlog and sprint progress.

• 🚩 Undermining Team Autonomy: Micromanaging the team, not trusting their decision-making, or ignoring their feedback, stifling innovation and empowerment.

• 🚩 Ignoring Feedback Mechanisms: Disregarding retrospectives and feedback, not acting on suggestions, or penalizing those who raise concerns.

• 🚩 Favoritism and Exclusion: Promoting unhealthy competition, showing favoritism, or excluding some members from decisions, contradicting the collaborative spirit of Scrum teams.

So, how can we begin to unravel these complex issues and foster a healthier leadership environment? One promising approach is through the use of empathy maps!

Using Empathy Maps to Unmask Fears

An empathy map is a collaborative visualization used to articulate what we know about a particular type of user. While this tool helps teams and project managers delve into the minds of their users or stakeholders, I have found it to be invaluable in addressing office drama.

An empathy map is traditionally divided into four quadrants:

1. Says: Quotes and definitions that the user has given.

2. Thinks: What the user is likely thinking, which might not always align with what they say publicly.

3. Does: The actions the user takes.

4. Feels: The emotions the user might be experiencing.

Adjust this tool to help you understand the individual’s behavior:

1️⃣ Gather evidence and observations

Before starting with the empathy map, collect observations, feedback, and specific instances of behavior that have led to the perception of the leader or manager being toxic. This might involve interviewing team members, reviewing performance reports, and gathering any other relevant data.

Be careful not to pick up on your perceptions and express your biases to others. This exercise is not for gossip, on the contrary, be unbiased and identify an underlying problem that may be affecting others.

2️⃣ Create the Empathy Map

Using the traditional empathy map structure, you can start filling in each quadrant based on the behavior and feedback related to the leader or manager in question.

• Says: Document any statements or public declarations made by the leader that could be contributing to a toxic atmosphere, such as derogatory comments, unrealistic demands, or publicly shaming employees.

• Thinks: Infer from their actions, decisions, and communications what their thought process might be. This can be speculative but should be grounded in observed actions. For example, a leader who frequently dismisses feedback may think that they are the only one with the right answers.

• Does: Note down the actions of the leader that are perceived as toxic. This could include things like micromanaging, taking credit for others’ work, or not providing support to team members.

• Feels: Try to understand the emotions driving the leader's behavior. This is speculative but important; they might be under great pressure, feeling insecure about their position, or unaware of the impact of their behavior.

3️⃣ Analyze the Map

Once your empathy map is complete, analyze it to look for patterns or contradictions among what the leader says, thinks, does, and feels. This can provide insights into the root causes of their toxic behavior.

4️⃣ Develop Actionable Insights

Use the insights gained from the empathy map to develop strategies for addressing the leader's toxic behavior. This may involve:

• Providing Feedback: Constructive feedback can sometimes open a leader’s eyes to their toxic behavior.

• Support: Identifying if the leader feels insecure or under pressure might mean they need more support from their superiors or peers.

• Training and Development: The leader might benefit from leadership coaching, conflict resolution training, or emotional intelligence development.

5️⃣ Be Brave

I think this is the most important part of this process. It is easy to document, observe and make assumptions. But having a real dialogue with them, and sometimes confrontation, is necessary, as uncomfortable as it may be. It takes a lot of courage!

Being courageous and standing up to toxic leadership is crucial to creating a healthy work environment and fostering a culture of respect and trust. It is always better to address toxic behavior head-on rather than letting it linger and negatively impact team morale, productivity, and overall success. As I wrote about that in this post:

Once the strategies are in place, it’s important to monitor (of course in a good sense) the situation to see if there is an improvement. This might involve regular check-ins with the team, additional training, or even changes in leadership if the toxic behavior does not change. 

⭐️ Example: Addressing Micromanaging Behavior

This is how I approached micromanager behavior with a Scrum Master, but this is just an example and your situation may differ and you can direct conversations and actions appropriate to your problem.

As a Product Manager, my goal was to discuss the impact this behavior was having on team morale, autonomy, and agile practice in general. Why? Why should I care? Well developers cannot come up with great ideas and a sense of accountability if they don’t own their work.

With a silenced and fearful team, you are less likely to build something good and that brings real value to the product and the company.

So I started to gather evidence, talking to the team while observing behavioral patterns that triggered specific and very clear signals of a fake/toxic leadership. Next I came up with something like this:

When I felt it was the right time I took the initiative to start the conversation and do something about it.

My approach to dialogue was very simple:

Raise awareness ➡️ Encourage reflection ➡️ Propose solutions ➡️ Provide support/help

A sample of this conversation

👩🏻‍💼 PM: Sam (hypothetically name), I'm glad we could find the time to talk. I've received some team feedback regarding the current project management style. Have you sensed any tension during our Scrum ceremonies?

👨🏼‍💼 SM: No, we’re doing great. What kind of feedback are we talking about?

👩🏻‍💼 PM: The team has expressed feeling micromanaged, which might be impacting their morale and meaningful contribution. It's essential for our success that everyone feels empowered to contribute.

👨🏼‍💼 SM: I don’t see it that way. I just want to maintain control over the project's direction because I’m the leader.

Most of the times, they will express directly this mistaken sentences. ⤴️

Appreciating their thoughts, even though they may contradict your own, helps make the conversation more open and empathetic. ⤵️

👩🏻‍💼 PM: I appreciate your commitment. Yet how about we try involving the team more in decision-making and give them some ownership of the tasks? I believe this will help balance responsibility with autonomy. Which currently is not happening.

👨🏼‍💼 SM: I understand, I’m just not sure if that’s a great idea, but what if it leads to mistakes or missed deadlines?

Directly expressing fear of failure and making mistakes. ⤴️

Help them get back to the core of it all, this could be: the company culture, the framework values, the purpose of their role, the values of the team, their involvement in the product or company. In addition, continue with a hook by providing internal or external support. ⤵️

👩🏻‍💼 PM: Part of Agile is learning and evolving through challenges and fostering team accountability and empowerment. This could help us What if we set up a mentorship with an experienced Scrum Master to support this shift in approach?

👨🏼‍💼 SM: I'm not so sure about it. But I’m open to follow up on this matter. It could be useful to get another perspective.

Bringing in outside support may not be pleasant, but they are likely to handle it with you. Now they know something is wrong and they have to take responsibility for it. ⤴️

If you let them know that you don't judge them or them personally, but that you care about the team, the product and the company itself, the conversation is likely to end well. Your goal is to make them reflect how their actions can cause a ripple effect on others and the company. ⤵️

👩🏻‍💼 PM: Excellent. Let’s check in regularly, what do you say? So we can discuss progress and adjust our strategies as needed. Thanks for being open to this dialogue, Sam. I want you to know that I really appreciate this time and that I’m here to support you.

It's not about micromanaging the other person or expecting them to change drastically overnight. Also, if you're committed to supporting them, really do it. After all, we're all in this together, so if that means passing them articles, posts, videos, books, 360 feedback or anything else that can help them grow and perform better, how can that be a waste of your time, right?

We as leaders can create a workplace where everyone feels valued, supported and able to contribute their best work. 😉 That reminds me of Uncle Ben phrase:

Let's strive to be authentic leaders who truly bring value and inspire others to do the same. Have you done this when dealing with other leaders? How have you addressed these situations? Let me know in the comments!