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Much of the cross-cultural research addresses the ongoing debate regarding the convergence or divergence of leadership theories and models in countries having different cultures and socio-economic conditions. This chapter aims to integrate destructive leadership and culture by pointing out the plausible cultural norms and values inducing or preventing destructive leadership. The chapter firstly provides brief definitions of culture and destructive leadership along with the cultural dimensions used to categorize the societies. Additionally, the chapter reviews the research findings pertaining to the perception of destructive leadership in different cultures and societies. While acknowledging the existence of universals regarding negative/dark leadership behaviours, the divergence regarding the understanding and enactment of the leadership is also stressed out.

A plethora of research has been carried out both in terms of addressing different conceptualizations of destructive leadership and its relationship with various outcomes. In this vein, this chapter focuses on the relationship between destructive leadership and followers' well-being. In particular, it addresses the current state of inquiry about the plausible effects of destructive leadership on the followers' mental and physical health, including experiences of stress, emotional exhaustion, and negative affectivity. Furthermore, it presents empirical research exploring the underlying mechanisms of this relationship. Finally, it proposes the implementation of occupational interventions to prevent and/or reduce destructive leadership behaviors and later provides recommendations for prospective research. Thus, the current chapter contributes to the extant literature by providing a comprehensive view regarding the detrimental effects of destructive leadership on the followers' well-being as well as offering insight into how to deal with its negative effects.

Toxic leadership is often studied from a leader-centric perspective, which focuses on the detrimental outcomes of leaders with destructive ideas and practices. In this chapter, we provide a global value chain (GVC) perspective, which accounts for effects of corporate leadership from inception of a product or service idea to its consumption across the value chain. In particular, we demonstrate how toxic leadership is sustained through an illusio, i.e., the allure of the often-charismatic leadership discourse, which is rendered unaccountable due to lack of global regulation of GVCs. This allows for global organizations and toxic leaders to exploit weaknesses in national-level regulation. Drawing on a netnographic study of toxic leadership in Amazon, we demonstrate how toxic leadership created the illusion of success while perpetuating toxicity and exploitation across their complex value chains internationally.

Hypocrisy is a widely recognized concept in both academic literature and popular media. However, very few studies have examined the reflections of hypocrisy in leader's behaviors in organizational behavior literature. Leader hypocrisy mainly refers to the misalignment between words and deeds of a leader. This chapter first provides a review of the concept of hypocrisy and its various conceptualizations in philosophy, social psychology, and organizational behavior literatures. The chapter then focuses on the implications of leader hypocrisy for organizations and its members by presenting the studies conducted on the emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral consequences of leader hypocrisy (word–deed misalignment) and leader behavioral integrity (word–deed alignment). Moreover, some of the gaps in the literature are identified, and suggestions are made for future research on the topic.

Organizations are investing their resources to identify effective leaders; however, the most commonly utilized assessments of leadership potential do not cover the social cognitions of individuals. Trait assessments, which are explicit in nature, also have other problems, including faking and socially desirable responding. In this chapter, we highlight the importance of leaders' implicit reasoning processes, with a particular focus on cognitive biases, in an attempt to understand how destructive leaders frame the world, situations and people and how they justify their choice of behaviours and decisions. Empirical evidence in the literature supports the valid use of implicit reasoning measurements in organizational contexts. Thus, we first summarize and list the cognitive biases of destructive leaders as identified in the literature. We then turn our focus on Machiavellian leaders as they have been associated with destructive leadership. We present the most common six cognitive biases and justification mechanisms of Machiavellian leaders based on our qualitative analysis of interview responses from 72 employees. We aim to encourage researchers and practitioners to make use of the literature on implicit reasoning and to further contribute to developing measures assessing such implicit reasoning processes.

This chapter reviews ethical challenges confronting nonprofit administration in relation to organizational managerial practices and leadership behaviors. Through a theoretical model of nonprofit-specific toxic leadership, it reviews the dynamics of destructive leaders, susceptible followers, and conducive environments in cases of unethical and corrupt nonprofit organizational behaviors. It provides a case for prioritizing oversight responsibilities of the board of directors, board supervision, promoting ethical culture in organizational leadership, and implementing policies for addressing destructive and corrupt nonprofit leaders. It reflects on how nonprofit toxic leadership primarily erodes public trust in the nonprofit sector and concludes with practical recommendations for recentering positive behaviors congruent with the nonprofit's social and public good mission.

Research has overwhelmingly focused on the positive side of leadership in the past. However, research into negative aspects of leadership is picking up pace. This chapter will provide an overview of two prominent aspects of negative leadership, namely, abusive supervision and laissez-faire leadership. Research has shown that both types of leadership have significant negative consequences both for organisations as a whole as well as individual followers. Examples include lower job satisfaction, stress, as well as lowered performances and a higher likelihood of counter-productive work behaviour. Both abusive supervision and laissez-faire researchers acknowledge that these leadership styles take effect through the perception of followers. That is, they consider that the same behaviour can be interpreted differently by different followers and will, hence, lead to different follower-related outcomes. Abusive supervision and laissez-faire are, however, very different in terms of the actual leader behaviours described. While abusive supervision is a style that is actively destructive, laissez-faire is destructive via lack of support for followers' goal achievement. We end the chapter with an outlook for future research, notably an attempt to systematise future research into destructive leadership with respect to the different forms it can take.

There are several permutations of destructive leadership types. Most involve active leadership actions, but some involve passive actions (or lack of leadership). A review of the literature reveals a relative dearth of root causes of destructive leadership type, but a reasonable sampling of causal factors and predictors of destructive leadership results. The author focuses on three relevant and representative destructive leadership types: Pseudotransformational, Laissez-Faire, and Unethical, and scoured the literature for root causes, causal factors, and predictors related to each. He further compared and contrasted these leadership types to differentiate their similarities and differences and discussed the causal factors and predictors associated with the operationalization of these leadership styles.