Facing Toxicity: Navigating Harmful Leadership, by Jonathan H. Westover PhD

Abstract: This article explores principles and strategies for constructively confronting toxic leadership in organizational settings. Toxic leaders plague every industry through detrimental behaviors such as self-absorption, volatility, aggression, and prioritizing personal interests over the organization. While removing toxic individuals seems logical, direct confrontation often backfires due to power dynamics and resistance to change. The article defines toxic leadership and its negative impacts like demotivation, turnover, dysfunction, poor climate, and harm to employee well-being. It then proposes following three principles drawn from research when constructively confronting toxicity: appealing to the toxic leader's self-interest through presenting objective data on problems, recommending specific improvement actions, and enlisting insider allies within the organization. A case study example illustrates applying these principles successfully. The article stresses the importance of managing expectations regarding lengthy change processes and incremental cultural improvements over rapid transformations or ‘silver bullet’ solutions.