#484 Toxic Leadership: Myth, Reality and the Dangerous Misuse of a Powerful Term
Toxic Leadership: Myth, Reality and the Dangerous Misuse of a Powerful Term
Article by Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Toxic leadership has become one of the most overused and misunderstood concepts in modern business. Few leadership terms are currently employed with such confidence and yet applied with such inconsistency. In boardrooms, on social media and increasingly inside organisations, “toxic leadership” is frequently used to describe anything from discomfort to direct feedback. That is a mistake.
The distinction matters because the consequences of misdiagnosis are profound. When organisations label demanding leadership as toxic, standards erode. When they fail to identify genuinely destructive leadership, people suffer, performance collapses and reputations deteriorate.
The scientific definition of toxic leadership provides clarity. Early research described toxic leaders as maladjusted, often malevolent individuals who succeed by tearing others down. Contemporary scholarship moved further and defines toxic leadership as behaviour that causes serious and enduring harm to followers, organisations or institutions through destructive behaviours and dysfunctional personal characteristics.
This distinction is critical. Leadership that feels uncomfortable is not automatically toxic. High expectations, accountability, direct communication and consequences for underperformance are not examples of toxicity. They may constitute tough leadership. In highly demanding sectors such as banking, trading, healthcare or emergency management, leaders often operate under pressure, with high standards and limited room for failure.
Toxicity begins where dignity ends.
A leader who humiliates employees, attacks their identity, devalues them as human beings or creates an environment of fear crosses a clear line. Public humiliation, psychological intimidation, discriminatory remarks and deliberate degradation are not merely unpleasant behaviours. They are destructive leadership patterns that damage both individuals and organisational performance.
For business leaders, the challenge lies in implementation. Organisations require clarity regarding acceptable behaviour. Employees and leaders alike need awareness of where tough leadership ends and toxic leadership begins. Clear behavioural expectations, professional leadership development and sustained coaching are essential.
Leadership is not instinctive. Most leaders were never formally trained. Without professional qualification, poor habits often become normalised, particularly when short-term performance appears to improve under pressure or fear. This is one of the reasons why toxic leadership persists.
Excellent leadership demands a different standard. Sustainable leadership combines accountability with dignity, performance with respect and pressure with professionalism. The strongest organisations do not remove standards. They remove destructive behaviours.
The real question for modern leaders is therefore not whether leadership should be demanding. It should. The question is whether leaders can demand excellence without destroying trust. Organisations that answer this question well outperform those that do not.
For decision-makers, one truth remains unavoidable: toxic leadership is neither a fashionable buzzword nor a personal feeling. It is a scientifically definable phenomenon with measurable organisational consequences. Understanding the difference between tough and toxic leadership may become one of the most important leadership capabilities of our time.
Niels Brabandt regularly speaks, trains and advises organisations on sustainable leadership, leadership culture, communication and organisational excellence. Search for “Niels Brabandt” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube to access the latest leadership podcast and videocast episodes.
Niels Brabandt
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Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Toxic leadership. You probably heard that term, and I received so many emails, I had so many discussions online and offline. The term now is all over the place, and we have to get hold of what toxic leadership really is because the vast majority of claims out there meanwhile are false and reflect on something which might be in a certain way not pleasant to you. However, we have to define what really is toxic leadership and where is the line that it's not toxic leadership something which might not be your favorable behavior. However, it is still an acceptable way of leadership. Where does toxic leadership begin? And where does it end?
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
What are the boundaries? Welcome to this week's episode, we're going to talk about toxic leadership. Very important, of course, is when we talk about toxic leadership, the first question always is, is there scientific— is there a scientific definition of toxic leadership? And here the good news, there is. Very important is when we talk about the definition, it means someone has defined at a certain point in time, what toxic leadership is. And the first definition was by Marcia Lynn Wicker, and the definition was maladjusted, malcontent, and often malevolent persons who succeed by tearing others down. So it's a very interpersonal aspect here.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
We see that this is about certain people who succeed in tearing others down. However, today, in the newest definition by John Lipman Blumen, you will find a more behavioral approach and also a way more detailed definition. So let's look into that here. Toxic leadership refers to leadership behavior that inflicts serious and enduring harm on followers, organizations, or institutions through dysfunctional personal characteristics and destructive behaviors. So we see it is behaviors, and as we can all see, behaviors on the one hand can change, but dysfunctional personal characteristics— the question is Can we really change that? The main issue right now is that at the moment, because there is toxic leadership out there, there's no question, there is a massive amount of toxic leadership out there. However, the discussion at the moment gets kidnapped by people who use the term in a wildly wrong way.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So let's say you have an application. Let's say someone says, look, Mrs. Schubert, look, Mr. Miller, when When everything gets a bit stressful, I'm getting pretty loud and I can be shouty at you. It's nothing personal. This is just how I am, you know. Let's just take this statement.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Someone gives that statement to you. And often people say, look, just last week, my leader approached me and said, I didn't meet the goals. And that was really unpleasant. It's really unpleasant. Didn't make me feel comfortable.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
That's toxic leadership. I didn't feel comfortable. So it's toxic leadership. Hint: this is not toxic leadership. We have a massive amount of malattribution out there. Just because you personally consider something unpleasant does not mean that something really is toxic leadership. We just, we distinguish between toxic leadership and tough leadership. Tough leadership means you have high standards, a direct way of communicating, you hold people accountable, when they achieve something, there is usually a bonus in there, and when they don't, there's the opposite, a malus in there, and you will face negative consequences.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
When someone says, look, you should do 50 phone calls a day in this call center and you only had 42, we had 1, 2, 3 talks with you, we had 1, 2, 3 promises from you, we gave you help in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12 cases, and you didn't change in the slightest, we are now thinking about letting you go or firing you. That is not toxic leadership just because you consider it personally unpleasant. Here are the bad news, if you want to call it bad news. If you think that the workplace always has to appease to being the most pleasant place on earth, in a perfect world that probably could happen, but in reality it does not. Just because sometimes it feels a bit stressful, sometimes it feels a bit not so nice, that does not mean it is toxic leadership. Be aware of that because it is crucially important to know that not everything that you do not like is automatically toxic leadership. So when we get to toxic leadership, because now we have to see the reality here, the reality is this is deeply rooted in personalities.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
As soon as you have people who say things like, oh, you know, back in those days, we wouldn't even hire those people. I mean, look at this person, he's working at a bank now. Do you know where this person comes from? 'People from these cities, from these parts of town, wouldn't even get through the door back in the days.' So someone is humiliating someone based on where they come from, who they are, who they were born as, and suddenly says, 'You are not worth to be here.' That's the definition of toxic leadership behavior. That's one part of it.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
When people say, 'You are not worth anything as a human being, you're a loser in life,' That is toxic behavior. When people tell you, look, we agreed on your sales goals, you had to get in £500,000 and you got in £350,000, and it's the third year in a row where you do not meet your sales goals despite all the talks we had, all the help we gave you, and all the promises you made, we now have to talk about consequences. That's not toxic leadership just because it feels personally unpleasant to you. The toxicity of something is defined by reasoning. When someone can give you reasoning doesn't yell or shout at you or crosses any personal line towards you of inadequate or even indecent behavior, then we do not talk about toxic leadership. Toxic leadership crosses these lines. They humiliate you.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
They make you devalue yourself as a human being. They talk you into self-blame. They cross the line of inadequate or even indecent behavior. They sometimes even cross the line and violate the law. That is toxic behavior or even illegal behavior. The toxicity needs to be defined properly because when in real-world application, you start to call every minor inconvenience, and believe me, I am not going to be the bloke who tells you, oh, you know, all the work has to be hard, only hard work pays off.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
No, that's not the message. However, when everything you consider unpleasant is toxic, the game will very quickly capture it on the other side as well, and they will say, 'Oh, you know, we're a corporation. I'm a CEO. I feel really unpleasant when I pay my taxes. No, I'd rather not.' That's toxic leadership by the state, isn't it? And no, it's not.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
The real-world application here needs to hover around the scientific definition and the facts we can get together with excellent reasoning on top of that. If you then wonder how can we now implement this in an organization when you think that sounds rather tricky, I can tell you it's not easy.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
However, when you implement this in your organization, it simply means first, of course, you have to get an awareness for that. People need to be aware that there are two types of leadership in general, and you can be, if you want to be, it wouldn't be my approach, but you can be on tough leadership if you want to do that, up to you. Maybe not the most preferred stuff for many, but it can work in certain circumstances.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
However, people need to know where is the line to toxic leadership, phrases you should not say, phrases you cannot say, where Where does the law draw the line? Where do people draw the line? Where do we all find together to a workplace where we all like to work? Because as soon as you overstep the mark to toxic leadership, you have a social delegitimization, which means when you are socially delegitimized, no one's going to follow you in the future. Material will be leaked, your reputation goes down the drain, and everything gets worse from there for absolutely anyone.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And as soon as you have the awareness, we now have to see that unfortunately many leaders have not learned how to lead people. I give you a very simple example. When you have to lead salespeople and you don't know how, and you become a really nasty person, you basically terrorize people psychologically, and suddenly you see, oh, they're now meeting their sales goals. Then you condition yourself to believe, oh, this is how it needs to be. This is how leadership is. Need to be nasty so people meet their goals, right? Because they just did. No, no. You don't know any better.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
However, this is still toxic leadership when you cross that line. You need to teach people how to lead people properly, and these kind of leadership coaching, etc., needs to be done professionally. It's not going to be a 15-minute online class which you do during your lunch break. The qualification needs to be there. Leadership needs to be learned.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Only when people properly learned how to be leaders, are properly qualified on the matter, and then see where is the line to toxic leadership. Then they can do something about that. The qualification clearly shows the way people need to learn the toolbox to be excellent leaders, because as soon as they do, they very quickly see with different leadership styles, we all need to work together on the goal, meaning obviously that we need to have an agreement overall. We need to have an agreement overall how to work together on this matter.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And as soon as you say We do it the way that it's done well, from tough leadership away from toxic leadership, from tough leadership to any kind of more soft leadership approach. Then everything will be better in your organization as well. And I wish you all the best implementing this in your organization.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
At the end of this podcast and videocast, however, there are always two things I say. First, when you get in touch, you get a really quick answer. I guarantee you an answer within 24 hours or less. Second, very important, is apply, apply, apply what you see in this podcast, because only when you apply what you learn, you will see the positive aspect that you obviously want to see in your organization. And last but not least, there's only one thing left for me to say at the end of the podcast and the videocast. When you apply everything, everything will get better. So apply, apply, apply what you learn. I wish you all the best. And for today, there's only one thing left for me to say. Thank you very much for your time.