In Episode 5 of Beyond Management™️, a guest dropped a truth bomb that left many viewers stunned, but not surprised.
“I worked with a manager who harassed the community and manipulated the board.”
This is the dark side of leadership no one wants to talk about, but everyone needs to hear.
Some managers don’t lead, they perform. They harm their teams or those they serve behind closed doors, but charm executives and boards in public. The result? Toxic behavior is protected, reinforced, and perpetuated.
Why This Is So Dangerous
- False Leadership Metrics: Boards often focus on financial outcomes or surface-level KPIs ignoring the human cost underneath. A toxic manager may meet performance goals but do so by burning out teams and silencing dissent.
- Psychological Damage: Employees under these managers often suffer in silence, experiencing anxiety, decreased confidence, and emotional exhaustion. Retention plummets, but the root cause gets buried under spin.
- Cultural Corruption: When boards protect harmful leaders, they send a loud message: “As long as results look good, behavior doesn’t matter.” That corrodes trust at every level of the organization.
Signs Boards and Leaders Should Watch For
- High-performing teams with high turnover
- Anonymous complaints that echo similar themes
- A manager who constantly blames others for failures and takes sole credit for success
- A charismatic manager whose team seems disconnected or afraid to speak freely
Actions to Take Now
- Include Employee Sentiment in Executive Evaluation: Make psychological safety, team feedback, and well-being part of how performance is measured at the leadership level.
- Introduce Anonymous Board Access Points: Employees should have the ability to report serious misconduct directly to a board-level liaison, confidentially and without retaliation.
- Normalize Skip-Level Conversations: Executives and board members should regularly connect with employees beyond management layers to hear unfiltered feedback.
- Use 360 Reviews as a Baseline Requirement: Don’t just assess how a manager shows up to the board, assess how they show up to their teams.
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About Netta Jenkins
Netta Jenkins is a distinguished tech CEO and the visionary behind the acclaimed 8-week leadership accelerator, Super Charged Management. As a two-time published author with Wiley, her forthcoming book, “Supercharged Teams: How Every Manager Can Create a Culture of Excellence,” follows her debut work, “The Inclusive Organization,” recognized as a top read in Forbes and amplified by Arianna Huffington to her 10 Million Linkedin Followers.
Netta hosts the Beyond Management™️ LinkedIn leadership web series, powered by Holistic Inclusion Consulting, which has garnered over 10 million impressions. Through engaging, street interview-style content, she fosters meaningful discussions that enhance organizational learning and development, boost brand visibility, and position organizations as thought leaders, driving new customer acquisition and talent recruitment.
A seasoned TEDx and keynote speaker, Netta has captivated audiences worldwide, delivering science-backed insights and strategies with compelling impact. With over 15 years of expertise in global workplace advisory and a LinkedIn following exceeding 200,000, she has been featured in leading outlets such as The Washington Post, McKinsey, Forbes, and Fortune. Her influence earned her recognition as one of the Top 10 Most Influential Black Women in Business to Follow by CIO Views in 2021.
Previously serving as VP of Global Inclusive Strategy at IAC, Netta partnered with brands like Match.com, Vimeo, and Daily Beast. She advises Betterment, consults executives via the Intro app, and is pursuing a doctorate in quality systems. Currently, she collaborates with Marc Lore (former CEO of Walmart) and Preet Bharara (former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York) to build Telosa, a visionary new city in America.
Residing on the East Coast with her family, Netta continues to make a transformative impact in both the corporate and startup landscapes.
