Destructive Leadership-the Role of Followers and Environment: A Literature Review
- walterdrysdale
- Nov 30, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Dec 1, 2024
Destructive Leadership-the Role of Followers and Environment: A Literature Review
Introduction
Organizations and leaders aspire to create organizations that are successful within their respective fields. Success or failure is often attributed to the efforts of individual leaders. In the academic study of leadership, the dynamics of the leadership process most often focuses on the attributes, behaviors, and competencies of a leader as an individual responsible for the success or failure of an organization. Furthermore, most academic studies and literature focus on the positive or constructive side of leadership and leaders. In my career within the military, I have heard coworkers describe certain leaders as destructive or toxic due to a variety of reasons that may or may not be valid. Regardless of a particular profession, the research related to destructive leadership is a universal concern for mitigating this type of leadership that research suggests is a dynamic relationship between leaders, followers, and environment. This literature review aims to determine a prevailing definition of destructive leadership, as well as helping to understand the relational dynamics between destructive leaders, followers and the organizational environments that can lead to destructive leadership.
Destructive Leadership
Research by Padilla et al. (2007) define destructive leadership and the relationship between leaders, followers and environment by five key features. First, destructive leadership can have positive or negative effects for an organization, but whether the outcome of those results is constructive or destructive helps to define destructive leadership. Second, destructive leadership uses coercion and manipulation instead of persuasion and commitment. A third description of destructive leadership is the focus on meeting the needs and goals of the leader themselves at the expense of followers or other stakeholders. Fourth, destructive leadership undermines the goals and purpose of the organization because it erodes the quality of life of internal and external stakeholders evidenced by the overall outcome or result. Last, the outcome of destructive leadership to an organization is dependent on followers and the right environment. The overall synopsis of their research is best summarized as destructive leaders are not capable of destructive results without susceptible followers and a conducive environment.
Krasikova et al. (2013) offer a more succinct definition of destructive leadership based on their research. They define destructive leadership as willful behavior that harms or intends to harm an organization or followers by encouraging followers to pursue goals that contradict organizational interests and/or employ a leadership style that uses methods of influence harmful to followers, regardless of the reason. Their model of destructive leadership proposes a primary factor for destructive leadership which is goal blockage. Krasikova et al. (2013) explain goal blockage as either when a leader’s and organization’s goals don’t match or when a leader believes the achievement of personal or organizational goals are being prevented by followers.
Followers Role in Destructive Leadership
While research by Padilla et al. (2007) and Krasikova et al. (2013) point to followers as sharing responsibility or being complicit in the destructive leadership relationship with leaders, Thoroughgood et al. (2012) provide a detailed taxonomy of followers associated with destructive leadership. They categorize susceptible followers into two categories of either conformers or colluders. Conformers are subject to the influence of toxic leaders because of a sense of obedience established in the authority of an organization. Although they will not actively promote destructive leadership characteristics, they will go along with the goals of a destructive leader. In contrast, colluders are described as opportunists. They will actively promote and take advantage of destructive leadership because it serves their own personal gain, or they believe in it.
Conformers
Conformers are categorized as lost souls, authoritarians, and bystanders. Lost souls are particularly prone to following along with destructive leadership and environments because they are looking for direction and belonging. Authoritarians are a type of conformer that has strong internal values that support the legitimacy and adherence to strict hierarchical and authoritative leadership structures. A destructive leader can take advantage of this existing belief in authoritative leadership because the follower believes that the leader has the right to make decisions simply based on their position. Almeida et al. (2021) describe this type of follower as a passive follower in their study of follower profiles. They note these types of followers have hierarchical expectations that authority gives leaders the right to act in a destructive manner. The final type of conformer is the bystander. The characteristic of bystanders is being passive and motivated by fear which makes them conform to destructive leaders because they don’t want to suffer any personal cost for acting against a destructive leader (Thoroughgood et al., 2012).
A study by Pandey et al. (2021) gives further insight into the nature of conformers as a type of follower that shows a complicit nature in the destructive leadership relationship. Their research determined that because of destructive leadership, followers will avoid the situation through conflict coping mechanisms that most often take the form of voice withdrawal. Voice is defined in an organizational context as active, constructive discussion to solve problems with leaders or coworkers. Voice withdrawal can occur for several reasons such as, followers fear retribution from destructive leaders, don’t feel a sense of psychological safety within the organization, or a subordinate’s personality traits make them less likely to be affected by destructive leadership or less likely to confront problems.
Colluders
Colluders are categorized as either opportunists or acolytes. Opportunists often mirror the same characteristics as destructive leaders. They are driven by their own egos or ambition. Since they see a personal benefit in supporting toxic or destructive leaders, they will take advantage of the situation. By contrast with the opportunist, the acolyte is not necessarily motivated to follow destructive leaders simply because of personal gain, but rather because they share similar values and goals with a destructive leader.
Li et al. (2024) offer research that ties into the idea of colluders and the leader/follower dynamics in the destructive leadership process. Their research offers a slightly different perspective in which deviant or destructive behaviors on the part of followers is shown to lead to destructive leadership. Their research looked at the impact of deviant or destructive behaviors between leaders and followers. They noted a reciprocal relationship in which deviant behaviors by followers over time was shown to cause destructive leadership behaviors in leaders and further solidified the importance of followers in the leadership process. This concept can be connected to the idea of goal blockage noted previously by Krasikova et al. (2013). If behavior on the part of followers is seen as blocking the goals of a leader, this will solicit destructive leadership by a leader.
Culture and Support for Destructive Leadership
One environment that is conducive to destructive leadership that helps explain how followers play a part in the destructive leadership dynamic is the masculinity contest culture. Matos et al. (2018) note four dimensions which are show no weakness (avoid the display of soft emotions), strength and stamina (valorizing strength and stamina), put work first (don’t let outside obligations interfere with work), and dog-eat-dog (a hypercompetitive environment). One of the results of their study into organizational culture that facilitates destructive leadership connects environment, destructive leadership and how followers are influenced to support it. Matos et al. (2018) found that in masculinity contest type cultures, toxic leadership led to slightly increased work meaning. As they explain, a reason for this finding is that followers believe that toxic leadership is inherently a part of the masculinity contest culture and those individuals willing to sacrifice their personal well-being for a higher calling will endure toxic leadership despite the destructive nature of it. This concept has implications that can apply to both colluders and conformers as types of followers that either actively promote or are complicit in destructive leadership.
Conclusion
This review of current literature regarding destructive leadership provides a deeper understanding of the nature and characteristics of destructive leadership. As noted within this literature review and the associated studies and research, destructive leadership occurs because of an interaction between leaders, followers and environment. It is not a leader centric problem alone. This information can facilitate the success of any organization by helping to mitigate a misunderstanding of the depth and interconnected nature of various factors that can lead to destructive leadership. Knowing the relationship between leaders, followers, and environment in the destructive leadership dynamic provides a more comprehensive and accurate picture of this phenomenon.
References
Almeida, T., Ramalho, N. C., & Esteves, F. (2021). Can you be a follower even when you do
not follow the leader? Yes, you can. Leadership (London England), 17(3), 336-364,
Krasikova, D. V., Green, S. G., & LeBreton, J. M. (2013). Destructive leadership: A theoretical
review, integration, and future research agenda. Journal of Management, 39(5), 1308-
Li, P., Yin, K., Shi, J., Damen, T. G. E., & Taris, T. W. (2024). Are bad leaders indeed bad for
employees? A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies between destructive leadership and
employee outcomes. Journal of Business Ethics, 191(2), 399-413.
Matos, K., O'Neil, O., & Lei, X. (2018). Toxic leadership and the masculinity contest culture:
How “Win or Die” cultures breed abusive leadership. Journal of Social Issues, 74(3),
Padilla, A., Hogan, R., & Kaiser R. B. (2007). The toxic triangle: Destructive leaders, susceptible
followers, and conducive environments. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(2007), 176-194.
Pandey, A., Nambudiri, R., Selvaraj, P., & Sadh, A. (2021). A temporal study on subordinate’s
response to destructive leadership: voice withdrawl as a conflict coping mechanism.
The International Journal of Conflict Management, 32(5), 886-911.
Thoroughgood, C. N., Padilla, A., Hunter, S. T., & Tate, B. W. (2012). The susceptible circle: A
taxonomy of followers associated with destructive leadership. The Leadership Quarterly,
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