Since Jean Lipman-Blumen's The Allure of Toxic Leaders shook the corporate world in 2005, countless articles, books, and Internet blogs have appeared on the topic. Despite such interest and response, no study of toxic leadership had appeared from a Christian point of view until this volume, Kenn Gangel's Surviving Toxic Leaders. Gangel begins by showing that toxic leadership existed throughout biblical history. Making generous use not only of biblical materials but also of contemporary leadership literature, Gangel names the causes and cures of power abuse, cheating, bullying, laziness, and dictatorial behavior in today's leaders. Readers will benefit from Gangel's leadership experience and expertise. He has been a pastor, a college dean (twice), and a college president. Gangel currently edits The Seal, a review of leadership literature. Practical and personal, Surviving Toxic Leaders abounds with stories of real people and their situations. Everyone who has ever had trouble at work will benefit from Surviving Toxic Leaders.
This book derives from my struggle to make sense of the experiences HR professionals generously shared with me, as well as my own experience surviving a toxic leader. In this book, I share these stories and a systemic research-based perspective on toxic leadership, recognizing that the problem of a toxic workplace is never encapsulated in the leader alone. I argue throughout the book, that it is crucial and urgent that we not only learn about toxic leadership, but act to end it.
Unlike other books written on "toxic leaders," this book takes issue with the predominant view that "toxic leaders are bad" and destructive to their companies. Rather, the author argues that even highly productive leaders have some toxic qualities central to their success story. The book redirects the conversation about toxicity in a more productive direction, as toxic leaders are not just viewed as villains and liabilities, but are also considered as potential assets, innovators, and rebels. Working on the premise that "toxicity is a fact of company life," the book provides organizations with a model and blueprint on the advantages to be gained from skillful anticipation, control, and handling of troubled and difficult leaders. In contrast to dysfunctional organizations that ignore toxicity or dwell on the perceived destructive impact of toxic leaders, successful companies come up with resourceful, innovative strategies for turning seeming deficits into opportunities.
Toxic leaders, both political, like Slobodan Milosevic, and corporate, like Enron's Ken Lay, have always been with us, and many books have been written to explain what makes them tick. Here leadership scholar Jean Lipman-Blumen explains what makes the followers tick, exploring why people will tolerate--and remain loyal to--leaders who are destructive to their organizations, their employees, or their nations. Why do we knowingly follow, seldom unseat, frequently prefer, and sometimes even create toxic leaders? Lipman-Blumen argues that these leaders appeal to our deepest needs, playing on our anxieties and fears, on our yearnings for security, high self-esteem, and significance, and on our desire for noble enterprises and immortality. She also explores how followers inadvertently keep themselves in line by a set of insidious control myths that they internalize. For example, the belief that the leader must necessarily be in a position to "know more" than the followers often stills their objections. In addition, outside forces--such as economic depressions, political upheavals, or a crisis in a company--can increase our anxiety and our longing for charismatic leaders. Lipman-Blumen shows how followers can learn critical lessons for the future and survive in the meantime. She discusses how to confront, reform, undermine, blow the whistle on, or oust a toxic leader. And she suggests how we can diminish our need for strong leaders, identify "reluctant leaders" among competent followers, and even nurture the leader within ourselves. Toxic leaders charm, manipulate, mistreat, weaken, and ultimately devastate their followers. The Allure of Toxic Leaders tells us how to recognize these leaders before it's too late.
Drawing on her extensive experience and research in various types of organizations—business, political, even religious organizations—Dr. Whicker looks closely at three distinct types of leaders which she categorizes as trustworthy, transitional, and toxic leaders. In a clear and readable style she describes leadership subtypes for transitional and toxic types: the absentee leaders, the busybodies, controllers, enforcers, streetfighters, and the bullies, all of whom are dangerous to their organizations and are directly responsible in many cases for an organization's decline. Whicker makes clear, however, that there are ways to protect oneself from such leaders, and shows exactly what these strategies are. A compelling, anecdotal, authoritative analysis for anyone in any organization who has ever wondered why did the boss do that — and why to me? As Dr. Whicker sees it, trustworthy leaders are good, moral, green light leaders. They can trusted to put the goals of the organization and the well-being of their followers first. Organizations with trustworthy leaders at the helm have a green light to advance in productivity, growth, and progress. Three types of trustworthy leaders are consensus builders, team leaders, and commanders. Transitional leaders are self-absorbed, egotistical, yellow light leaders. They are focused on the approval of others and concerned with their personal role as leaders. Organizations headed by transitional leaders have a cautionary yellow light to growth, and lurch along at the mercy of the ebb and flow of external currents and trends. Three types of transitional leaders are absentee leaders, busybodies, and controllers. Toxic leaders are maladjusted, malcontent, and often malevolent and malicious. They succeed by tearing others down. They glory in turf protection, fighting, and controlling others rather than uplifting followers. They are red light leaders who destroy productivity and apply brakes to organizational progress. They have a deep-seated but well-disguised sense of personal inadequacy, selfish values, and cleverness at concealing deceit. Three types of toxic leaders are enforcers, streetfighters, and bullies. This book gives the reader strategies for surviving transitional and toxic leaders and for restoring organizational health.
Since Jean Lipman-Blumen's The Allure of Toxic Leaders shook the corporate world in 2005, countless articles, books, and Internet blogs have appeared on the topic. Despite such interest and response, no study of toxic leadership had appeared from a Christian point of view until this volume, Kenn Gangel's Surviving Toxic Leaders. Gangel begins by showing that toxic leadership existed throughout biblical history. Making generous use not only of biblical materials but also of contemporary leadership literature, Gangel names the causes and cures of power abuse, cheating, bullying, laziness, and dictatorial behavior in today's leaders. Readers will benefit from Gangel's leadership experience and expertise. He has been a pastor, a college dean (twice), and a college president. Gangel currently edits The Seal, a review of leadership literature. Practical and personal, Surviving Toxic Leaders abounds with stories of real people and their situations. Everyone who has ever had "trouble at work" will benefit from Surviving Toxic Leaders.
"A study of toxic leadership in the U.S. military and an examination of ways to better the command structure through a revamp of the way leaders are trained and treated"--
Chances are, you already know what it’s like to work for a toxic boss. You know they suck the air out of a room and the life out of their employees, and you don’t need a research report to tell you that working for one is a nightmare. If this sounds like your current reality, and you want help, this book is for you. The Toxic Boss Survival Guide can help you analyze your immediate situation, create a workable survival plan that fits your situation, and carry it out (including abandoning the situation, if that is what it takes to survive).
“The day this person left our company is considered an annual holiday!” THIS QUOTE, taken from Kusy and Holloway’s research on toxic personalities, echoes the frustration and confusion that come from working with or managing an extremely difficult person. Just one toxic person has the capacity to debilitate individuals, teams, and even organizations. Toxic Workplace! is the first book to tackle the underlying systems issues that enable a toxic person to create a path of destruction in an organization, pervading others’ thoughts and energies, even undermining their very sense of well-being. Based on all-new research with over 400 leaders, many from the Fortune 500 list, this book illustrates how to manage existing toxic behaviors, create norms that prevent the growth or regrowth of toxic environments, and ultimately design organizational communities of respectful engagement. Kusy and Holloway’s research reveals the warning signs that indicate a serious behavioral problem and identifies how this toxicity spreads in systems with long-term effects on organizational climate, even after the person has left. Their two-year, cutting-edge research study provides very specific actions that leaders need to take to reduce both the intensity and frequency of toxic personalities at work. No other book provides this menu of options from a systems perspective with practical relevance in real work situations. You’ll learn how to identify the toxic personality and describe the leader reactions and approaches that typically don’t work. Toxic Workplace! provides hands-on approaches that work with research-based strategies at the individual, team, and organizational level.Toxic Workplace! will provide new insights on how leaders lead, how organizational cultures sustain themselves, and how teams deal with toxic personalities.
