Leadership is essential to making and establishing policies, directing and controlling environments, and influencing people to perform at a high level. Innovation awaits the proper balance of labor and motivation. When employees desire to perform at a high level of efficiency for the organization and are committed to making a living for their families, they should not be subject to abuse, harassment, or workplace stressors. Yet, many workers struggle with leaders who are toxic bully bosses. Today's toxic bully boss is reminiscent of the 17th-century American slavocracy leadership tactics. Slaveholders valued the slave body, a source of enforced free labor, but convinced themselves the enslaved person's mental capacity was essentially nonexistent. Slaveholders maintained this mindset to control the laborers toiling in the fields and maintain their focus on agricultural productivity (Morrow, 2004). During the slavocracy, the fields were equivalent to today's offices. Notably, working conditions then were forced, while today's workers earn wages for their labor. Workers spend the majority of their waking hours at work. According to Hulin (2002), very few things “…influence … each of us, our families, our children, our values, or our status as much as the choice of a job or occupation” (p. 8). Leadership is at the forefront of decisions and policy implementations (Namie & Namie, 2009). Leslie (2015) introduced nine tenets for leadership efficacy: “change management, inspiring commitment, taking initiative, building collaborative relationships, leading employees, strategic perspective, strategic planning, participative management, and being a quick learner.” Regardless of the leadership style in the 21st century, Leslie's tenets can help convert a toxic workplace into a productive environment. The following definitions provide clarification about destructive leadership styles. Toxic bully bosses may exhibit any of these five distinct leadership styles that are detrimental to successful leader-employee relationships because of the destructive behaviors associated with each one: destructive leadership, tyrannical leadership, derailment leadership, supportive–disloyal leadership, and laissez-faire leadership. These leadership styles have the potential to destroy a person's humanity through the leader's abuse of power by conditioning, controlling, and diminishing the worth of those who work for them. According to Brown (2009), dehumanization is the tendency to “treat, regard, or represent a person as less than human.” According to Fontesse et al. (2019), dehumanization is also the denial of one's humanity, thus suppressing the individual's voice. Capretta et al. (2008) and Henderson (2010) described derailed leaders as inexperienced, immature, inflexible, and incapable of changing or adapting to the organization's culture. Derailed leaders cannot form or maintain interpersonal relationships and may come across as insensitive, intimidating, aloof, or arrogant. According to Einarsen et al. (2007), destructive leadership is a broad overarching concept covering several misbehaviors including but not limited to overthrowing, disapproving, discrediting, and damaging another individual. The laissez-faire, or delegating, leader, according to Cherry (2021), is “hands-off and allows [s] group members to make decisions, … [which] leads to … lower productivity among group members.” Laissez-faire leadership overlaps with behavior classified as abusive (Bies & Tripp, 1998). According to Herman and Wilson (2020), supportive–disloyal leaders “show exaggerated interest in the welfare of subordinates, but little to no regard for the interest of the organization. The abuses committed by this … [leader] … may include stealing … materials, time, or financial resources.” This type of leader is probably the most dangerous leader next to the tyrannical leader. This leader insists that a follower is a person of value for whom they will do everything to support. Unprovoked, such a leader may turn on the follower to save themselves from culpability. Hardwick (2018) noted that tyrannical leaders “micromanage, express rage when things go wrong, and use blame and shame for motivation.” Tyrannical leaders often exercise unrestrained dominance to abuse the authority they have in their roles. Toxic leadership defaults back to the 17th-century toxic bullying tactics of dehumanizing people, which can lead to an unproductive workplace hampered by diminished morale. The toxic leader exhibits the styles described earlier. According to Morrow (2004), these destructive leadership tactics, if implemented correctly, would control employees for over 300 years. One could surmise that many of the styles described originated and thrived during the American slavocracy. To maintain effective control of the slaves, several toxic leadership styles were employed like tyrannical, supportive–disloyal, and derailment leadership to create an “us against them” mentality. The abuse of power by the leaders fostered an environment of violence and oppression. Dehumanization results from an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn barbarizes the oppressed (Freire, 2014). With the many leadership resources and technological advancements in the 21st century, leadership focus needs to be concentrated, now and in the future, on Leslie's nine essential leadership skills, which emphasize leadership and employee relationships. According to Leslie (2015), the focus should be on soft skills and building relationships: “leaders who have good skills in directing and motivating people know how to interact with staff in ways that motivate them.” Leslie defined the landscape in which leaders must navigate to be effective. The nine tenets' foci are embedded in skills of strategic planning, managing change, and people relationships. If implemented effectively, these tenets create a win/win for the people and the organization. The workplace is not a utopia; thus, employees are still challenged by the toxic bully boss. Corporations are paying enormous fees to eradicate leadership failures. Davenport et al. (1999) and Daniel (2009) suggested that although the body of research is growing, the United States lags behind other countries in studying the problem of the toxic bully boss. The findings of Vega and Comer (2005) illuminated the unwillingness of American organizations to take a stand on toxic leadership and workplace bullying by implementing policies, procedures, legislation, and laws that can improve the quality of employees' work lives. Furthermore, workplace dignity seems to be a distant concern of those leaders who continue to be irresponsible or unaccountable to their followers, and whose actions result in their organizations having to pay out significant fines that have escalated to billions of dollars. Unlike the 17th-century leaders, 21st-century leaders, although still challenged in some capacity with building relationships, are often required to develop the necessary soft skills to be effective in their organizations. Some of the most salient styles of leadership I encountered were supportive–disloyalty, tyrannical, and derailment. Supportive disloyal leaders convince followers that they are valuable and that they would do everything possible to support followers. On the contrary, derailing and tyrannical leaders do not waste time: they want to establish power and will do what is necessary to let followers know they are in charge. However, these same leaders would not hesitate to assign blame to their followers to save themselves from any discipline from their superiors. In my own experience, it became easy for me to conceptualize the intent and practice of the leaders. One symptom I experienced from these forms of leadership was bewilderment: “Why was I attracting this negative energy? Why me?” I often felt like I was working in a maze with no visible exit. The intensity of the abuse, sabotage, disloyalty, and tyranny always made me feel like something was wrong with me. I experienced shortness of breath due to anxiety at times, and I was anxious about what would happen next. I found myself in disbelief at the betrayal of leadership, and the arrogance of an egotistic leader. It has always been a perplexing situation when people desire to operate from a place of good intention, yet leadership often seems determined to destroy an individual's motivation. Strife prevailed in every setting where good communication and relationship building were minimized. Leslie's (2015) tenets offer guidelines for improvement, assessing leaders' key skills and behaviors, creating training programs, and fostering a feedback-rich environment. It is critically important to protect one's mental health as mental health issues are on the rise, due, in part, to toxic leadership. In the last 20 years, researchers of the toxic bullying-boss phenomenon, or workplace bullying, have seen a steep increase in the number of studies examining the relationship between workplace bullying and mental health. According to Conway et al. (2021), “Workplace bullying represents a powerful stressor and a severely traumatic experience that may profoundly shatter people's assumptions about themselves and the surrounding world” (para. 1). The effects of the actions of the toxic bully boss on an individual can include depression, anxiety, psychological distress, post-traumatic stress disorder, and burnout. The resulting damage to one's mental health can be debilitating. Consequences include sleep disorders, fatigue in women, lack of vigor in men, major depression, mood adjustment disorders, socioeconomic consequences, and even work-related suicide (Sansone & Sansone, 2015). Self-preservation is the most critical lesson to embrace when working with a toxic bully boss. Just as one can examine the effects of a toxic workplace on a person's physical health, one must pay close attention to the effects of that environment on a person's mental well-being. One must create a space for building relationships and developing people to be courageous to take risks and increase the skills Leslie recommended. There will not be anyone coming to rescue followers; every ounce of energy followers have must be applied to elevating themselves above the conditioning and control of the toxic leader. If followers encounter a toxic bully boss, they must not make the mistake of thinking the bully boss will change, especially if the bully boss is not conscious of their transgressions. These types of leaders will not allow themselves to see past their gains. The longer the victimized employee is entangled in this labyrinth, the shorter their lifespan will be. The individual should never be afraid to speak out about abuse, harassment, or psychological warfare. If individuals do not give themselves a voice the world cries out. Moreover, followers should not make themselves small so that others may appear to be bigger (Williamson, 1989). For more than 300 years, people have silently endured the toxic bully boss. Today, workplace victims still suffer from the abusive power of the toxic bully boss. The scars, pain, death, and memory should never be forgotten. All these significant factors inspire active and dynamic practices of social reconnection (Brown, 2009). If American corporations are to thrive, there must be a transformation from the old “us-against-them” mentality to a more wholesome environment of collaboration, communication, respect, and value. Dehumanization is a past practice that must be eradicated from all workplace environments. Leaders can inspire, lead, and transform cultures and organizations by seeing and respecting people as people. The connection among people can build a momentum that diminishes the power of the toxic bully boss, thus let everyone lift their voice, till earth and heaven ring (Brown, 2008). Let us not continue the path of past leadership where the wounded are discarded without regard. Moreover, as Hulin (2002) stated, let us remember that work influences us more than anything; it is where we spend most of our time. Leaders must be more accountable and responsible in their interactions with employees (Pechan, 2021). While the toxic bully boss may not disappear, responsible leaders can change how they lead and develop others (Sippio, 2019). David Sippio, Ph.D. is a researcher, speaker, and publisher whose focus is toxic leadership and workplace bullying. He is currently the principal owner of Nu Thought Leadership Coaching and Consulting Group based in Orlando, Florida. Communications can be directed to drdavidsippio@gmail.com.