Impaired employees: Lessons learned from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

This article highlights the ‘dark’ side of employee psychological, cognitive, and behavioral disorders that could prove harmful to other employees, to groups within the organization, or to the organization itself. Using The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a backdrop, we relate the attitudes and behaviors of the book's characters to destructive tendencies and syndromes that employees may exhibit, and which may wreak havoc on the firm; a description of the characters, the definition and manifestation of the maladies, and critical dimensions of each are presented. Finally, strategic components for addressing the employees’ dysfunctional behavior are discussed.