Toxic Leadership

Organizations at the strategic, operational and tactical levels can be severely damaged by a small number of toxic leaders. In recent months the topic of toxic leadership has gained momentum and senior strategic leaders are applying more emphasis toward its reduction and elimination. It is not surprising that there have been few studies that actually examine the kinds of negative leadership behaviors service members experience and even fewer that examine the experiences of senior officers. The terms bad, destructive, and toxic leadership are used interchangeably in this paper to describe interpersonal behaviors by those in leadership positions that negatively impact subordinates.3

What does bad or toxic leadership mean? Does it mean leadership that is immoral or unethical? Does it mean leadership that is incompetent or ineffective? Questions like these have no easy answers. Bad or toxic leadership is a phenomenon so ubiquitous it‘s a wonder that bookstores shelves are not heavily loaded with books on the subject, ---but they are not. Maybe everyone avoids the subject because toxic leadership is located in what Harlan Cleveland refers to as the untidy world of human relations.4 Those engaged in the study of leadership seem almost to collude to avoid the elephant in the room, toxic leadership. Leaders go through life accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative in order to create a healthier positive command climate.5 A qualitative study conducted at the Army War College in 2003 indicated that when given an opportunity to discuss it, military officers provided many anecdotal accounts of

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experiences with destructive leadership. So why is there so much interest in toxic leadership? The simple answer is organizations realize these types of leaders reduce organizational effectiveness and cost institutions large amounts of money.6

Examples of toxic leadership and superior leadership are provided to show evidence of the implications of when leaders are...