Let's Talk About Toxic Leadership with Mark Tinsley

Welcome to this week’s episode of the StephUp Podcast! Thank you for your support and for coming back each week to listen. This episode features special guest, Mark Tinsley. Steph and Mark begin their conversation by talking about what toxic leadership really means and how an incompetent leader is usually shown as goofy in the media but that incompetency can be many other things. As someone who has had a career in the army, Mark tries to live by their definition: leadership provides purpose, direction and motivation.

Purpose:  the what and why

Direction: providing guidance on how to do it.

Motivation: providing inspiration.

"Toxic leadership: anything that we do as leaders that hurts the people that work in our organization or that hurts our organization.”

Many times, we think of a manager or boss as  a person who is directing their employees but not necessarily someone who listens and motivates.

Mark explains that a lot of organizations want to promote people too fast, especially if they have a high level of education. But many times they do not have the experience, and leaders are made through their experiences.

Steph and Mark discuss the rise and fall of church leaders. On top of becoming famous too soon, there is also the element of maturity in one's faith.  And holding leaders accountability is key. When you start to question or challenge leaders, especially in the church, you are told not to say anything because it's "from Satan".  In contemporary Christianity, we've built this lie that we have to hide behind a facade of perfection.

Mark explains how a leader can be on the hook for their employees' negative actions if they did not have any accountability set in place. He also provides advice for employees to speak the truth but we also have to be sure that the environment and/or leader is truly toxic and that it isn't our own perception of toxicity.

Follow Mark on his websites: The Crock Radio and Cowboy country music radio website

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