Destructive Leadership: A Critique of Leader-Centric Perspectives and Toward a More Holistic Definition

Christian N. Thoroughgood, Katina B. Sawyer, Art Padilla, Laura Lunsford

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    104 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    Over the last 25 years, there has been an increasing fascination with the “dark” side of leadership. The term “destructive leadership” has been used as an overarching expression to describe various “bad” leader behaviors believed to be associated with harmful consequences for followers and organizations. Yet, there is a general consensus and appreciation in the broader leadership literature that leadership represents much more than the behaviors of those in positions of influence. It is a dynamic, cocreational process between leaders, followers, and environments, the product of which contributes to group and organizational outcomes. In this paper, we argue that, despite this more holistic recognition of leadership processes within the broader leadership literature, current conceptualizations and analyses of destructive leadership continue to focus too heavily on behaviors and characteristics of “bad” leaders. In our view, to achieve a more balanced understanding of destructive leadership, it is important to adopt more integrative approaches that are based 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, we offer a critique of the destructive leadership literature, propose a broader definition of destructive leadership, and highlight gaps in our understanding of leaders, followers, and environments in contributing to destructive leadership processes. Finally, we conclude by discussing strategies for examining destructive leadership in a broader, more holistic fashion.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)627-649
    Number of pages23
    JournalJournal of Business Ethics
    Volume151
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Sep 1 2018

    Keywords

    • Destructive leadership
    • Environments
    • Followers
    • Leadership processes
    • Toxic leadership

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Business and International Management
    • General Business, Management and Accounting
    • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
    • Economics and Econometrics
    • Law

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