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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.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a relationship between pay satisfaction and leader–member relationship and examine pay satisfaction as a moderator of the relationship between toxic leadership and LMX among public sector nurses in Ghana.

Using a cross-sectional survey approach, the authors used questionnaires to collect data from 225 nurses working in public hospitals in Ghana. The hypotheses were tested using covariance-based structural equation modelling.

The results of this study revealed that pay satisfaction levels of nurses had an influence on leader–member exchange (LMX). The results further showed that pay satisfaction as a moderator of the relationship between toxic leadership and LMX was not statistically significant.

Cross-sectional surveys are often criticised for causality issue. The causality issue here is that the link between toxic leadership, pay satisfaction and LMX was explored at a given point in time and ignores changes through time.

Hospitals must encourage their leaders to demonstrate more supportive and positive behaviours to foster positive leader–member relationships. Maladjusted, malcontent and malevolent leadership behaviours are dangerous for nurses and hospitals and can be addressed through leadership training and development.

Toxic leadership has considerable organisational costs of low productivity and negative work relationship at the workplace. The indirect effects of toxic leadership at the workplace on employees’ families and friends are often silent in organisations.

Nurses have been ignored in toxic leadership research in emerging economies. LMX is extended to examine toxic leadership and pay satisfaction in public hospitals in an emerging economy.

Leadership has been known for its tremendous impact on employees' outcomes in any organisation. Constructive leadership positively impacts employees, while destructive leadership causes counterproductive work behaviours (CWB). This study aims to investigate the effect of toxic leadership on employees' CWB via the role of turnover intention by employing the psychological contract theory.

The participants were recruited using various recruitment methods such as online recruitment and alumni networks. After dropping some participants who failed to complete the three-wave data collection procedure, 457 responses were used for the final data analysis. The participants came from various public organisations in Indonesia (e.g. hospitals).

The results found that the effect of toxic leadership on employees' CWB was mediated by the role of turnover intention. Under a toxic leader, employees might intend to leave the organisations and commit CWB as the employees perceived the psychological contract breach.

Firstly, public organisations should implement some strategies to reduce the emergence of toxic behaviours. Secondly, public organisations should evaluate and examine how leadership is exercised within public organisations. Lastly, the organisations must ensure that their leaders do not breach employees' psychological contracts.

This study has highlighted the effect of toxic leadership on CWB in public service organisations by employing a psychological contract theory and a power distance perspective.

This study aims to appraise and synthesize evidence examining the effects of toxic leadership on the nursing workforce and patient safety outcomes.

This is a systematic review in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol. Five electronic databases (SCOPUS, PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL and Psych INFO) were searched to identify relevant articles. Two independent researchers conducted the data extraction and appraisal. A content analysis was used to identify toxic leadership outcomes.

The initial literature search identified 376 articles, 16 of which were deemed relevant to the final review. Results of the content analysis identified 31 outcomes, which were clustered into five themes: satisfaction with work; relationship with organization; psychological state and well-being; productivity and performance; and patient safety outcomes. Seven mediators between toxic leadership and five outcomes were identified in the included studies.

Organizational strategies to improve outcomes in the nursing workforce should involve measures to build and develop positive leadership and prevent toxic behaviors among nurse managers through theory-driven strategies, human resource management efforts and relevant policy.

The review findings have provided modest evidence suggesting that working under a leader who exhibits toxic behaviors may have adverse consequences in the nursing workforce; however, more research examining if this leadership style influences patient safety and care outcomes is warranted.

This study aims to analyze the relationship between toxic leadership and exit, prosocial voice, neglect and defensive silence. Second, this study investigates the mediating role of loyalty in these relationships.

A cross-sectional survey design with a sample of 544 individuals was used in this study.

The results suggested that toxic leadership positively influences exit, defensive silence and neglect and negatively influences prosocial voice. In addition, loyalty was found to be a partial mediator of the studied relationships.

This study addresses different theoretical debates, namely, loyalty as an attitude or behavior and its role in individuals’ responses and the relationship between silence and voice.

Neste estudo, pretendeu-se analisar a relação entre a liderança tóxica e a saída, voz prosocial, negligência e silêncio defensivo. Foi também investigado o papel mediador da lealdade nestas relações.

Foi realizado um estudo transversal com uma amostra de 544 participantes.

Os resultados sugerem que a liderança tóxica influência positivamente a saída, o silêncio defensivo e a negligência. Sugerem também uma influência negativa da liderança tóxica na voz prosocial. Adicionalmente, verificou-se que a lealdade é uma mediadora parcial nestas relações.

Este estudo aborda diferentes debates teóricos, nomeadamente a lealdade como atitude ou comportamento, o seu papel nas respostas dos indivíduos e a relação entre silêncio e voz.

En este estudio, nos proponemos analizar la relación entre el liderazgo tóxico y la salida, la voz prosocial, la negligencia y el silencio defensivo. En segundo lugar, investigamos el papel mediador de la lealtad en estas relaciones.

En este estudio se utilizó un diseño de encuesta transversal con una muestra de 544 individuos.

Los resultados sugirieron que el liderazgo tóxico influye positivamente en la salida, el silencio defensivo y la negligencia e influye negativamente en la voz prosocial. Además, la lealtad resultó ser un mediador parcial de las relaciones estudiadas.

Este estudio aborda diferentes debates teóricos, a saber, la lealtad como actitud o comportamiento y su papel en las respuestas de los individuos y la relación entre silencio y voz.

Although the background on positive and supportive leadership styles and their positive effects is constantly increasing, it is known that negative and destructive leadership styles are less researched. Thus, examining the toxic leadership behaviors of nurse managers and the effects of these on nurses has a critical significance. When the measurement tools evaluating toxic leadership are examined, it is seen that there is a need for measurement tools that evaluate the toxic leadership behaviors of nurse managers. This study's purpose is to psychometrically examine the Turkish version of the Toxic Leadership Behaviors of Nurse Managers (ToxBH-NM-TR) Scale and test the hypothesized conceptual model that includes the relationships between toxic leadership, mental well-being and work engagement.

This quantitative research was carried out in psychometric, correlational and cross-sectional design. A total of 559 nurses were included in the study by using the convenience sample method. The ToxBH-NM-TR Scale, Warwick–Edinburg Mental Well-Being Scale and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) were used to measure the latent variables of the study. The data were collected between June and October 2020 with the online survey method. IBM SPSS Statistics 24 and Amos 21 statistical programs were used to analyze the data.

The scale-content validity index of the ToxBH-NM-TR was 0.88. Confirmatory factor analysis results showed that the fit indices were acceptable. The ToxBH-NM-TR had high internal consistency and temporal stability. In addition, the relationships between the latent variables of the study were in the expected direction and statistically significant (p < 0.001). The hypothesized conceptual model showed an acceptable or good fit to the data. Mental well-being partially mediated the relationship between toxic leadership and work engagement. The study showed that the ToxBH-NM-TR is a valid and reliable instrument and provided evidence that confirmed the hypothesized conceptual model.

The first of these is the fact that managers' toxic leadership behaviors were determined based on nurses' self-report. For this reason, participants' potential prejudices may have affected the results of the study. The second limitation concerns the data collection technique. Using face-to-face data collection techniques during the COVID-19 pandemic could create a danger/risk for the health of nurses, researchers and patients. Therefore, the nurses in this research were reached through an online survey on social media platforms. The participants of the study were limited to those who had access to social media. Finally, some socio-demographic and professional characteristics of the participants may be a confounding variable for the model. For this reason, this conceptual model needs to be validated on other samples in different countries to increase the generalizability of the research results.

The characteristics of this leadership style should be understood, and its effects on employees and organizations should be evaluated by screening regularly to prevent the development of toxic leaders and to eliminate the harmful effects of their behavior. The nurses should respond decisively to the forces that cause them to submit in order not to encourage a toxic leadership style. Healthcare institutions should develop procedures and take a proactive approach to destructive and negative leadership behaviors and practices. In addition, nurse managers should get feedback by using informal networks and 360-degree assessment tools and evaluate whether their leadership has a toxic function by regularly screening the effects of their leadership.

The results of this study offer important implications for nurses, managers and healthcare institutions and can be useful in gaining awareness about the negative effects of a toxic leadership style. In addition, the study provides a valid and reliable scale that will enable the identification of managers with this leadership style to prevent the development of toxic leaders and eliminate the harmful effects of their behavior.

In an article entitled “Identifying and combating organizational leadership toxicity,” authors Watt, Javidi, and Normore (Watt, Javidi, & Normore, 2015) identified and outlined techniques for combating leadership toxicity in Law Enforcement. This chapter extends this work by linking Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA) to toxic leadership. Crisis happens. Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), (a term) coined at the Army War College in the early 1990s (Mack, O., Kare, A., Kramer, A., & Burgartz, T. (2015), Managing VUCA world. New York, NY. Retrieved from http://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/2015/12/02/capturing-the-moment-counter-vuca-leadership-for-21st-century-policing/#sthash.IKYJInr4.dpuf), is a sobering new reality for leaders and the organizations they serve. In simple terms, VUCA is chaos. It falls on leaders to understand it, prepare for it, and minimize the disruptive and destabilizing effects of it.

This study aims to investigate the impact of toxic leadership, organizational justice and organizational silence on hospital employees' intention to leave their jobs.

A questionnaire survey was conducted with permanent and contractual employees of a university teaching hospital, including nurses, medical assistants, health technicians and clerical staff. Structural equation modeling was used to develop and test the model.

The findings reveal that toxic leadership is directly and negatively related to organizational justice, while all dimensions of organizational silence and the intention to leave are positively related. In this model, the coefficients of the relationships are found to be higher, almost doubling in permanent employees than in contracted employees, except for the relationship between toxic leadership and silence to protect the organization. This exception lies in the fact that permanent workers with long-term employment have been dealing with the managers for many years.

The model can be extended with counterproductive behavior, work performance and satisfaction measures and work stress and compared with different sectors using higher sample volumes.

In the human-centered health-care industry, it is essential to know the way leadership behaviors guide health-care professionals. The negative leadership behaviors can negatively affect both employees' self-esteem and their attitudes toward patients and their relatives. The results of the present study are expected to contribute to the development of more effective manager selection and promotion policies by policy-makers as well as the determination of short- and long-term employment policies.

Leaders have a profound impact on the work lives of the employees they supervise. This chapter explores the experiences of employees whose leaders exhibit toxic behaviors and the impact of this toxicity on employee engagement. The authors report the findings of a qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with 13 participants. First, the authors describe the participants’ experiences before and after experiencing toxicity. Next, the authors outline three critical toxic leadership styles: the nightmare (leaders who have unbalanced emotional control and who are overly fond of power), the pretender (leaders whose authenticity and integrity seem low, who play different characters depending on the circumstances), and the runaround (leaders who change directions too often or give unclear instructions). Finally, the authors address organizational, leadership, and individual strategies to identify and remove toxic leaders from the workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the distressing impact of toxic leadership on the mental state of the subordinates and examine the unique coping mechanisms used by them to deal with such leaders. The paper also examined the relationship between psychological distress and coping strategy used by subordinates to deal with the toxic leader.

This study presents a validity testing of two scales. The first scale was designed to measure experienced psychological distress emanating from exposure to toxic leaders, and the second scale aims to assess the coping strategies utilized by subordinates to deal with the toxic leaders. Data were collected from 570 employees working in public as well as private organizations in India.

The results of this paper supported the theorized two three-dimensional tools to measure: psychological distress (loss of self-worth, withdrawal and agitated) and coping strategies to deal with toxic leaders (assertive coping, avoidance coping and adaptive coping). Reliability estimates and construct validity of both the tools were established. The results also suggest that the loss of self-worth was negatively related with assertive coping, avoidance coping and adaptive coping. However, withdrawal was positively related with assertive coping and avoidance coping. Finally, agitation was positively related with avoidance and adaptive coping.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the rare studies to examine together the phenomenon of both psychological distress experienced by subordinates and the coping strategies utilized by them to deal with toxic leaders.