From General Damager to General Manager: What Can HRD Do?

Abstract: This conceptual paper introduces the concept of the Damager - leaders who have adopted practices that can cause severe damage to the people and organizations they lead. Drawing from destructive leadership literature, we identified and analyzed visible and invisible forms of damaging leadership and showed how the Damager could cause concerning damage to organizations at multiple levels. Furthermore, we discuss how damaging leadership practices are not limited to only the ones that are obvious in a work context. In organizations today, many invisible (less noticeable) yet potentially more harmful leadership behaviors prevail. These damaging leadership behaviors are often manifested by acts of intimidation, lack of care for followers, self-centeredness, credit-taking, favoritism, and an overall disregard for the human side of leadership. By offering new lessons learned, we urge human resource development professionals to engage in more relevant research and seek interventions to prevent the emergence of these destructive leadership practices and minimize their damaging impact. With leadership development as one of its core missions, the field of human resource development is well-positioned to address this critical organizational issue and promote positive leadership practices that will benefit multi-level stakeholders, both internally and externally.