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Part 1
Definitional Issues and Conceptual Clarifications in Destructive Leadership
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Chapter 1
Destructive Leadership: Explaining, Critiquing, and Moving Beyond Leader-Centric Perspectives
Christian Thoroughgood
Abstract
The term “destructive leadership” has been utilized as an overarching expression to refer to various “bad” leader behaviors thought to be associated with damaging outcomes for followers and organizations. Yet, there is a recognition in the broader leadership literature that leadership involves much more than the behaviors of leaders. It is a dynamic, cocreational process that unfolds between leaders, followers, and environments, the product of which results in group outcomes. In this chapter, I argue that in order to achieve a more balanced view on destructive leadership, it is vital to develop more integrative approaches that are grounded in the contemporary leadership discourse and that recognize flawed or toxic leaders, susceptible followers, and conducive environments as interdependent elements of a broader destructive leadership process. To this end, I provide a critique of the extant literature, propose a broader definition of destructive leadership, and discuss strategies to examine destructive leadership in a broader, holistic manner.
Keywords: Destructive leadership; toxic leadership; the toxic triangle; destructive leaders; susceptible followers; conducive environments
Introduction
When destructive leadership occurs, teams lose, armies are defeated, organizations fail, and societies suffer. The bankruptcies of Enron and WorldCom, the tragic events at Jonestown in 1978 and Waco, Texas, in 1993, and the widespread destitution in Germany after the fall of Hitler all underscore the destructive potential of leadership on organizations of various forms (Thoroughgood, Sawyer, Padilla, & Lunsford, 2018). However, when these destructive leadership episodes occur, we tend to focus on the role of leaders, rather than the group processes and the broader historical, institutional, and societal factors that also influence the outcomes.
Even leadership scholars have not been impervious to this leader-centric bias. Indeed, the term “destructive leadership” has increasingly been used as an umbrella term for various “bad” leader behaviors (e.g., abuse, theft, corruption) believed to be associated with negative outcomes for followers and/or the organization (e.g., Einarsen, Aasland, & Skogstad, 2007; Krasikova, Green, & LeBreton, 2013; Schyns & Schilling, 2013). However, a more balanced understanding of destructive leadership necessitates recognition that leadership processes and their outcomes are seldom the product of a single factor or person. Indeed, there is a general appreciation in the broader leadership literature that the term “leadership” has been defined too narrowly, and that it represents a dynamic, cocreational process between leaders, followers, and environments (e.g., Avolio, 2007; Collinson, 2020; Howell & Shamir, 2005; Uhl-Bien, Marion, & McKelvey, 2007; Vroom & Jago, 2007). Over time, the confluence of these factors contribute to group, organizational, and societal outcomes that vary in their constructiveness or destructiveness.
This chapter focuses on destructive leadership processes and the damaging consequences they have for organizations and their constituents. 1 First, I critique leader-centric perspectives on destructive leadership. I argue that, despite scholars' recognition of a broader leadership process, leader-centric definitions of destructive leadership still focus too much on “bad” leader behaviors. Second, I discuss a new, broader definition of destructive leadership that is grounded in the current leadership discourse. Although it is not my intention to diminish the role of “bad” leaders and their actions, I argue future research will profit from a more holistic lens that better reflects organizational realities. Third, I discuss several ways to examine destructive leadership in a more holistic manner.
Leader-Centrism and Destructive Leadership
Leadership research has primarily been leader-centric (Collinson, 2020), focusing on traits and behaviors related to leader emergence (“Does this person look like a leader?”) and perceived effectiveness (“Is this person doing a good job?”) (Kaiser, Hogan, & Craig, 2008). A smaller body of work examines how leaders influence group processes (“How did the team play?”) and group outcomes (“Did the team win or lose?”). Given the overarching belief that leadership is a group process involving social influence to achieve group goals, the literature tells us more about how leaders are regarded than about whether their groups perform well and achieve their goals (Kaiser et al., 2008). This focus on perceptions of leaders overlooks that leaders who are positively regarded may be associated with poor performing teams and organizational decline (“bad” leadership outcomes), while leaders who are negatively regarded may be associated with productive teams and organizational success (“good” leadership outcomes). Moreover, even when group processes and group outcomes are acknowledged, the roles of followers, environments, and time are often overlooked. Despite recent developments, followers are typically regarded as passive recipients of leaders' influence, while the environment is typically treated as a moderator of the effects of leaders on followers. Most studies also neglect the role of time, masking time-related changes in leadership processes (Shamir, 2011). As such, despite claiming to appreciate such factors, we often fail to integrate them into our definitions and studies of leadership phenomena.
Existing perspectives on destructive leadership are also largely leader-centric, focusing on traits and behaviors believed to create “destructive” outcomes for followers and organizations. Traits comprise, among others, narcissism and a personalized need for power (cf., House & Howell, 1992). Behaviors fall under various follower-directed constructs, including abusive supervision (Tepper, 2000), and organization-related constructs, such as toxic leadership (Lipman-Blumen, 2005). While the former includes perceptions of abuse, coercion, and arbitrariness, the latter include reports of corruption, sabotage, and theft. While leader traits and behaviors matter, they alone do not reflect the whole “story” of destructive leadership nor do they ensure destructive leadership outcomes will occur.
Why do we tend to focus on leaders in destructive leadership episodes and often neglect the roles of followers and environments? First, we are often intrigued by leadership outcomes, especially disastrous ones. Ruthless dictators, unscrupulous politicians, and unethical CEOs, for example, invite us to ponder what “dark” traits underlie destructive leadership outcomes when they occur. As such, we often fail to ask, “What factors, in addition to the leader, contributed to the outcomes?”. Second, research on the “romance of leadership” confirms a popular view of leadership that looks to leaders for answers to group and organizational problems; that is, people tend to ascribe disproportionate weight to leaders' influence on group outcomes, positive and negative (Meindl, Ehrlich, & Dukerich, 1985). This leader-centric bias is even more pervasive in individualistic societies where people are socialized into defining others as individual units (Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002). Third, much of the leadership literature reflects psychologists' traditional focus on traits and behaviors (House & Aditya, 1997), rather than higher macrolevel processes. Finally, the concurrent analysis of leaders, followers, and environments is difficult. It is much easier to use surveys that assess perceptions of leaders (Hunt & Dodge, 2001).
Problems with Leader-Centric Definitions
There are two general difficulties with leader-centric definitions of destructive leadership. First, they assume that certain leader behaviors are adequate for destructive leadership outcomes to occur, despite whether they lead to any significant harm to the group or not. This neglects the potential that sufficient checks and balances (e.g., internal oversight, external regulatory bodies) may remove a leader before they can seriously damage the group or organization; that followers may resist such leaders and thwart long-term damage to the organization and its stakeholders; or that some “bad” leader behaviors (e.g., aggression, unilateral decision-making) may even benefit some organizations and their members in some contexts. For instance, current definitions would suggest that leadership under former National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball coach, Bobby Knight, was “destructive” due to his combative style. Yet, Knight led the Indiana Hoosiers to three National and 11 Big Ten championships, won 661 games, boasted a player graduation rate of 98.0%, and is admired by most of his players for the life lessons he imbued in them (Feinstein, 2012). Likewise, Steve Jobs was a key driver behind Apple's tremendous success while he was CEO (1997–2011), despite his brusqueness. Thus, it is difficult to connect “bad” leader behaviors clearly with destructive leadership outcomes across all contexts.
Second, leader-centric definitions do not integrate the roles of followers and environments. They do not address why certain followers are susceptible to toxic leaders, how they influence their leaders' motives and behaviors, or why other types of followers actively contribute to destructive leadership processes. They also do not address how environments influence and are influenced by “bad” leaders and toxic leader–follower relationships. Regarding the impact of environments on “bad” leaders, Tourish (2020), for example, provides an insightful analysis regarding how certain industries, such as finance and banking, often involve “interactions, transactions, and events [that] create a power and status saturated world” which “produces, rewards, and institutionalizes hubristic behaviors” on the part of leaders (p. 92). Taken together, leader-centric definitions do not consider how followers and environments contribute to the emergence of destructive leadership processes or why they persist long enough to create destructive outcomes for organizations and their constituents.
A More Holistic Definition
Drawing on the underlying tenets of systems, institutional, and ecological theories, as well as more integrative approaches in the broader leadership literature, I argue that more a complete definition of destructive leadership should explicitly incorporate followers, environments, and time. Although a detailed discussion of these theories is not possible due to page limits (cf., Thoroughgood et al., 2018), each theory underscores the need for a broader understanding of leadership processes and their outcomes, one that not only considers leaders but also the environments they operate in over time. With respect to destructive leadership, systems and institutional theories would assert that “bad” leader behaviors, and their outcomes cannot be examined in isolation from the environments in which such behaviors are shaped and reinforced over time. From a macro view, ecological theories suggest that even well-intentioned leaders can be associated with organizational “destruction” due to the constraints that uncertain environments place on leaders to enact changes fast enough to meet changing demands.
Integrating these perspectives, I argue that destructive leadership reflects a special case of more general leadership situations, with the key difference being the extent to which the behaviors of flawed, toxic, or ineffective leaders (i.e., individuals with certain traits and characteristics) interact, over time, with followers and environments that are susceptible or conducive, resulting in aggregate destructive outcomes for groups and organizations. Specifically, I define destructive leadership as a complex process of influence between flawed, toxic, or ineffective leaders, susceptible followers, and conducive environments – which unfolds over time and, on balance, culminates in destructive group or organizational outcomes which compromise the quality of...
