Destructive Leadership Research Articles

University leadership within the neoliberal agenda: Reframing the landscape through a principled leadership approach

This article emerged from a doctoral study that explored Nova Scotia university leaders’ leadership beliefs and values, and change agency approaches. “Principled leadership” was conceptualized as an expansion of authentic leadership theory and involved – authenticity (identity), spirituality, and love (an ethic of care). Principled leadership was examined as a possible approach which could facilitate successful change agency. The leader-participants included university presidents, vice-presidents, directors, and deans. A key finding was that leaders were operating within a conceptualization of authenticity. They held honesty, integrity, and trust as critical to their change agency. Another finding was that principled leadership offered an antidote to the depredations on positive leadership resulting from neoliberalism that has seriously impacted Canadian higher education. This study raised questions surrounding the nature of authentic leadership and identity; that is, the core of authenticity is knowing oneself and being true to one’s own values, but what if a leader has “drunk the Kool-Aid of neoliberalism” thereby truly believes that their top-down, autocratic (or destructive leadership) approach was ‘efficient’ (a neoliberal tenet) and crucial to organizational effectiveness and change agency. Can they still be considered authentic leaders? Thus, this study indicated that principled leadership was a useful expansion of Avolio and his colleagues’ authentic leadership theory.

Leadership matters: The role of destructive leadership behavior and teachers’ demographic characteristics on teachers’ social engagement with students

The study intended to investigate the role of destructive leadership behavior, and teachers’ demographic characteristics on teachers’ social engagement with students in colleges of teacher education in the State of Amhara. A mixed method with an explanatory sequential design was employed. 397 teachers and 366 students participated in the quantitative data collection (questionnaire), whereas the qualitative data were collected with the help of interviews with college deans and teachers. Data collected through a questionnaire was analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. On the other hand, narration and interpretation were employed for qualitative data analysis. Findings revealed that deans’ destructive leadership behavior was exhibited significantly. Teachers were socially engaged with students (t (396) = 58.902, d = 0.54, p = .000). Deans’ destructive leadership behavior and demographic characteristics explain teachers’ social engagement with students. However, demographic characteristics only have a minimal contribution in explaining teachers’ social engagement with students. In conclusion, demographic characteristics have no role in teachers’ social engagement with students but destructive leadership behavior plays a role. Finally, recommendations were forwarded to potential stakeholders.

Antecedents and prevalence of destructive leadership behaviour: the case in primary and middle level schools

ABSTRACT The main purpose of this empirical study was to investigate the antecedents and prevalence of destructive leadership behaviour in primary and middle-level schools of the state of Amhara, Ethiopia. A mixed approach with an embedded research design was employed. Multi-stage stratified sampling was applied to select 748 teacher respondents. One sample t-test, multiple regression and hierarchical multiple regression model were used to analyse the data. The study revealed that antecedents of destructive leadership were moderately exhibited in Primary and Middle-Level Schools. When the prevalence of destructive leadership was regressed on susceptible followers, leader behaviour and conducive environment antecedents of destructive leadership, 61% of the variance in the prevalence of destructive leadership behaviour was accounted for by the interplay of susceptible followers, leader behaviour and conducive environment. Leader behaviour antecedent of DLB contributes more to the prevalence of destructive leadership behaviour among principals in primary and middle schools. Based on the findings of the study it is inferred that the antecedents of destructive leadership were moderately exhibited in the primary and middle-level schools of the study area.

Employee disengagement: the catalytic role of leader-induced defensive cognitions and perceptual politics

PurposeThe study aims to attain insights into the role of destructive leadership and perceived organizational politics as catalysts for employee disengagement through the perspective of social identity theory. The research further considers employees’ defensive cognitions for a comprehensive understanding of these interrelated phenomena in the workplace.Design/methodology/approachIn order to ascertain the pertinence and contextual relevance of the proposed framework, literary review was complemented by a survey-based study encompassing 114 full-time employees purposively selected from the six systemically important banks of Pakistan.FindingsThe findings accentuate the significance of destructive leadership in inducing withdrawal behaviours among employees directly and indirectly through continuance commitment. The results also underline perceptions of politics as a significant work environment impediment amplifying employees’ propensity to undergo psychological withdrawal.Originality/valueThe study contributes to strategic human resource management literature by offering an identity-based explanation for employees’ disengagement, considering Pakistan’s power-distant and collectivist orientation. The research further introduces an empirical novelty by postulating a total effect moderation model.

The prevalence and effect of destructive leadership behavior on teachers’ organizational commitment in the post-COVID-19 period: a case study of secondary schools in Amhara Regional State

The prevalence and effect of destructive leadership behavior on teachers’ organizational commitment in the post-COVID-19 period: a case study of secondary schools in Amhara Regional State

Unraveling DEIA Dynamics: Unconscious Biases and the Emergence of Destructive Leadership

Unraveling DEIA Dynamics: Unconscious Biases and the Emergence of Destructive Leadership

Leaders’ tendency to over- and underestimate themselves and their organizations: The subordinates’ perception

The aim was to test some psychometric properties of a questionnaire designed to measure leaders’ tendency to over- and underestimate themselves and their organizations when they are facing problems. Data were obtained from 63 Swedish managers who had attended leadership courses. As predicted, the findings show that leaders who overestimate their capacity to handle problems also overestimate their organization’s capacity to handle the demands, and vice versa. Contrary to prediction, positive correlations were found between the over- and underestimation scales. It was suggested that these last-mentioned finding reflects a general, cognitive ability and personality-based tendency to appraise situations more or less realistically. Similar patterns have been found in studies on destructive leadership and stress research focusing on daily hassles and uplifts. A combined estimation index was computed (Cronbach alpha = .72) and preliminary scale limits to be used by leadership training facilitators and coaches are presented.

Exploring the perceived effects of Destructive Leadership on employees' psychological empowerment: An Azerbaijan retail context

Azerbaijan's dynamic and diverse retail landscape is driving an escalating demand for motivated personnel, both locally and globally, to address sustainable development requirements. In competitive and demanding retail environments, the success of organizations can rely on confident, skilled, motivated, and informed employees to meet challenging business demands and inclusive growth. As Azerbaijan's retail competitive edge continues to expand, there is a heightened need for effective employer-employee interactions and strategic human capital to navigate intricate organizational hurdles. The targeted population for this study included current retail employees, and semi-structured in-depth interviews with 15 participants from 15 different retail service organizations were conducted. Hence, this research study addresses a crucial gap in leadership literature by examining the interplay between destructive leadership and employees' psychological empowerment, encompassing dimensions like meaningfulness, self-determination, competence, and impact. Employing a qualitative phenomenological approach, the study delves into the real-life experiences of employees within the Azerbaijani retail sector. The study concludes that destructive leadership can significantly hamper employees' psychological empowerment, resulting in negative impacts on their work role orientation, engagement, productivity, and commitment.

The moderating role of psychological power distance on the relationship between destructive leadership and emotional exhaustion

Destructive leadership, a prevalent negative behavior in modern organizations, continues to captivate the interest of scholars and professionals due to its detrimental aftermath. Drawing from social psychological (culture) and conservation of resources theory, we explore the moderating impact of psychological power distance on the link between destructive leadership and emotional exhaustion. The main contribution of this study is that it has created new information about the moderating role of some specific sub-dimensions of psychological power distance (e.g., hierarchy, prestige) in the relationship between destructive leadership and emotional exhaustion. Our findings also reveal a positive correlation between a destructive leadership style and emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, the prestige aspect of psychological power distance amplifies the influence of deficient leadership abilities and unethical conduct on emotional exhaustion. Notably, our study highlights that in the Turkish context, characterized by high power distance, and escalating hierarchies the impact of nepotism disparities on emotional exhaustion. In conclusion, these novel insights underscore a significant research avenue regarding cultural facets.

Insights into leadership practices in South African Higher Education

Orientation: The complexity of higher education highlights leadership’s significance. Effective leadership ensures quality education and institutional survival, with senior academics (specifically, professors and associate professors) greatly influencing reputation and research. Exploring senior academics’ leadership experiences is therefore crucial.Research purpose: This study aimed to explore senior academics’ experiences of leadership behaviours at a South African higher education institution, extracting their experiences of positive and negative behaviours.Motivation for the study: Senior academics play significant roles, with vital teaching, research, and reputation contributions to the quality of the university’s educational service. Despite numerous leadership studies, none have explored senior academics’ experiences in South Africa.Research approach/design and method: In this study, a qualitative descriptive design was employed to investigate the experiences and perspectives of 14 senior academics. The participants were selected using stratified random and snowball sampling techniques.Main findings: Participants experienced positive, effective behaviours and negative, destructive behaviours, highlighting the complexity of leadership experiences through contrasting experiences. Positive, effective leadership behaviours include constructive engagement, compassionate support, psychological safety and enabling growth. Negative, destructive leadership behaviours include poor communication and collaboration, eroding integrity and regard, unresolved issues, depersonalisation and toxic practices.Practical/managerial implications: Understanding experiences and implementing recommendations could incorporate positive leadership behaviours into competency frameworks for human resources practices. Awareness of the leadership ethos dichotomy can potentially establish a unique and characteristic leadership culture.Contribution/value-add: This study provides senior academics’ leadership behaviour perspectives and produces lists of positive and negative leadership practices.

Impact of destructive leadership styles on the psychological contract breach with the moderating effect of proactive personality

This research has an aim to investigate the impact of toxic and exploitative leadership and subordinate psychological contract breach, the moderation role of proactive personality within the proposed framework between the toxic leadership with psychological contract breach and exploitative leadership with psychological contract breach. Data was gathered utilizing a cross-sectional research technique. The sample of the study constituted 386 frontline nurses from public sector hospitals of Pakistan. Structural equation modelling was utilized for analyzing the collected data. Toxic and exploitative leadership had a significant positive impact on psychological contract breach. However, moderation of proactive personality was found to be insignificant between both relations.

Quantifying Forced Citizenship Behaviors among Healthcare Professionals: Data-Driven Insights into Nurse Destructive Leadership Effects

Destructive leadership and its outcomes have emerged recently. It has gained much attention in recent decade as it challenges the organizations. Purpose of present study is to explore the destructive leadership as an antecedent for compulsory citizenship behavior and emotional exhaustion in presence of hindrance stress as a mediator. Its quantitative study combined with survey method for data collection. Questionnaires have been adopted and data were collected from healthcare employees (Nurses) working in public sector hospitals in Lahore about the leadership of head nurses. 250 questionnaires were distributed and received 170 valid responses. SPSS has been used for data analysis. Frequency, correlation, descriptive, regression and mediation analysis have been performed to obtain the results. Results highlighted that there is significant positive impact of destructive leadership on compulsory citizenship behavior and emotional exhaustion of employees. Further results also reported that hindrance stress is significant positive mediation between relationship of destructive leadership, compulsory citizenship behaviors and emotional exhaustion of employees. Conclusion, limitations and future directions are provided in later sections of study.

Validity and reliability of the toxic leadership behaviors of nurse managers scale among Chinese nurses.

Toxic leadership is increasingly becoming common in the nursing field, but the measurement tools are lacking. Therefore, this study aimed to translate the toxic leadership behaviors of nurse managers (ToxBH-NM) scale into Chinese and test its psychometric properties among Chinese nurses. The data for this study were obtained from a cross-sectional survey of 1,195 nurses. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to examine the structural validity of the ToxBH-NM. The following psychometric properties of the scale were assessed: content validity, criterion validity, internal consistency reliability, and test-retest reliability. The Chinese version of the ToxBH-NM (C-ToxBH-NM) scale had two dimensions and 30 items. The correlation coefficients between the scores of each item and the total scores were 0762-0.922 (p < 0.001), and the range of the CR determination values of all the items were 8.610-18.998, with statistical significance (p < 0.001). The total content validity index (CVI) was 0.996, the average CVI was 0.996, and the item-level CVI was 0.875-1.000. Two common factors were identified in the EFA, and 81.074% of the variation was explained cumulatively. The CFA showed that all the fitting indexes reached the standard, and the model fit degree was good. When the Chinese version of the Destructive Leadership Scale was used as calibration, the correlation coefficient was 0.378 (p < 0.001). The Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the overall scale were 0.989 and of the two dimensions were 0.969 and 0.987, respectively, with a split-half reliability of 0.966 and test-retest reliability of 0.978. The research results show that the C-ToxBH-NM scale has good reliability and validity and can be used to evaluate the severity of toxic leadership behavior among nursing managers.

Measuring the Relationship Between Leadership Styles and Destructive Leadership Behaviors Among Air Force Students Attending Army Command and General Staff College

Background: The Air Force uses the full range of leadership model (transformational, transactional, and passive-avoidant leadership) to develop leaders. However, there has been less research at how the leadership styles in the full range of leadership model are related to destructive leadership behavior, evidenced by adverse administrative actions. Objective: Conduct a pilot study using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and Destrudo-L in tandem, within a smaller population of Air Force Professional Military Education students, to determine if, and to what degree, a relationship existed between leadership styles and destructive leadership behaviors. Methods: The MLQ-5X and Destrudo-L research instruments were used to collect data from a population sample of the Air Force field grade officers attending professional military education (n = 22). The MLQ-5X measured leadership styles, and the Destrudo-L measured destructive leadership behaviors. Results: Linear regressions measured the relationships between leadership styles and destructive leadership behavior and all regressions found p ≤ 0.005. Transformational leadership behaviors were negatively related to both passive (B = −1.36) and active (B = −0.86) destructive leadership behaviors. Transactional leadership behaviors were also negatively related to both passive (B = −1.3) and active (B = −0.83) destructive leadership behaviors. However, passive-avoidant leadership behaviors had a positive relationship with passive (B = 1.21) and active (B = 0.68) destructive leadership behaviors. Conclusion: This pilot study found a relationship between leadership styles and destructive leadership behavior. However, the cross-sectional design, small population within a single officer rank, setting of a competitive in-residence Professional Military Education course, limit the generalizability of the findings.

Destructive leadership and its relationship to job performance among secondary school principals from the point of view of the educational staff

Destructive leadership and its relationship to job performance among secondary school principals from the point of view of the educational staff

Identifying the prevalence of destructive leadership behavior and its determinants in northwest Ethiopia

Identifying the prevalence of destructive leadership behavior and its determinants in northwest Ethiopia

Cultural Values as Moderators of the Relationship between Destructive Leadership and Followers’ Job Satisfaction

Prior organizational research has shown that destructive leadership adversely affects followers’ job satisfaction. However, we still have an incomplete understanding of why the strength of this relationship varies across contexts. In this study, we leverage implicit leadership theory to explain why cross-national differences in cultural values moderate this relationship. First, drawing on implicit leadership theory, we develop theory-based predictions about why the cultural value dimensions from the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) study explain differences in the strength of this relationship across countries. Then, we aggregate findings from 51 primary studies ( k = 51, N = 16,870) conducted across 12 countries to test our hypotheses. Our results indicate that the negative relationship between destructive leadership and job satisfaction weakens in magnitude as uncertainty avoidance, future orientation, power distance, and assertiveness values increase. Conversely, the negative relationship between destructive leadership and job satisfaction strengthens in magnitude as institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism, humane orientation, performance orientation, and gender egalitarianism values increase. We also demonstrate the independent, relative, and collective predictive validity of GLOBE’s cultural values as moderators of the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ job satisfaction. Collectively, our findings (1) indicate that cross-national differences exist in the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ job satisfaction and (2) highlight the need to consider destructive leadership in light of the broader cultural context in which it is being examined.

An implicit leadership theory examination of cultural values as moderators of the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ task performance

Destructive leadership and its effects on followers all over the world have been emphasized in cross-cultural research in recent years. Despite continued scholarly and practitioner interest in both destructive leadership and job performance due to its implications for cross-cultural research, we have an incomplete understanding of the impact of cultural context on the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ task performance. We advance international business research by building and testing implicit leadership theory predictions about the impact of country-level cultural values as moderators of the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ task performance. We test our hypotheses and research question with a meta-analytic dataset that includes respondents from 12 countries (k = 72, N = 20,878). Our results demonstrate that several of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) framework’s cultural value dimensions moderate the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ task performance across countries. The findings are driven by the strong predictive validity of the performance orientation, in-group collectivism, gender egalitarianism, and humane orientation cultural value dimensions. Our contributions are important because we generate nuanced knowledge about the independent, relative, and collective predictive validity of cultural values in explaining the strength of the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ task performance across countries.

Who wreaks more havoc? Gender and the detrimental effect of abusive supervision on interpersonal deviance

Purpose Abusive supervision provokes subordinates’ interpersonal deviant behavior. It is, therefore, essential to explore the contingent factors of this relationship. Drawing upon gender role theory, this study aims to explore how subordinate and leader genders moderate the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinate interpersonal deviance. Furthermore, this study posits a three-way interaction effect of abusive supervision with leader and subordinate genders on interpersonal deviance. Design/methodology/approach Multisource survey data were collected from 45 supervisors and 170 subordinates in eight companies in China. The data were analyzed using the PROCESS macro in SPSS. Findings The results showed that the positive relationship between abusive supervision and interpersonal deviance was stronger among female leaders than male leaders. Furthermore, the authors found a three-way interaction effect between abusive supervision and leader and subordinate genders on subordinates’ interpersonal deviance. Compared with female subordinates, male subordinates engaged in significantly more interpersonal deviance when experiencing abusive supervision from a female leader than from a male leader. Originality/value The authors reveal that gender differences exist in the effect of abusive supervision on subordinates’ interpersonal deviant behavior. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that subordinate and leader genders jointly influence the effect of abusive supervision. Finally, the findings extend the literature on gender’s moderating effects from constructive and neutral leader behaviors to destructive leader behaviors.

Destructive leadership behaviors: The case of academic middle leaders in higher education

Destructive leadership, characterized by abusive behaviors and a lack of ethical integrity, undermines organizational morale and performance. This phenomenological study investigates destructive leadership behaviors exhibited by academic middle leaders in higher education, examining them through the lens of faculty members. Six faculty members from six Arab States participated in three rounds of interviews to capture their lived experiences. Data were supplemented by reflective journal entries, allowing researchers to examine their preconceived notions of the phenomenon under study. A whole-part-whole approach was utilized for data analysis. Findings illuminate specific instances of destructive leadership, including micromanagement and control, vitriolic communication, a detrimental organizational climate, and encroachment upon faculty members’ work-life balance. The study explores the impact of these behaviors on faculty morale, productivity, and overall organizational culture. This study contributes to a deeper understanding and discussion of the challenges presented by ineffective middle leadership in higher education environments.