Are you a toxic enabler?

Great article.

Sadly we do continue to enable 'toxic scholars' who can be detected at the very earliest stages of their careers. They rise because they are considered ambitious and seen as future leaders. They rise on duplicity, undermining truly talented academics and sometimes, misuse of the protected characteristics. When they become leaders, it is too late to reverse the damage done. Irina, your article is unfortunately true. We need to accept that toxic individuals need to be tackled, retrained if possible and should not be allowed to rise to leadership positions otherwise.

Academics from the humanities can always make insightful contributions to leadership and it was an interesting article from Irina. For a view from the business school as to how toxic leaders are so good at getting ahead you may find the following chapter of ours interesting:- Boddy, C., Boulter, L. and Fishwick, S., 2021. How so many toxic employees ascend to leadership. In Debating Bad Leadership (pp. 69-85). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. The study of the followers of toxic leaders is equally interesting and it seems that around 40% of people are attracted to a 'strong' leader regardless of their personality flaws - think the Third Reich and more recent USA presidents. Robert Hogan has also written some insightful material on how academics get ahead via politics rather than effectiveness. For any level of organisational or even global sustainability we have to change the way we choose and appoint leaders. Good luck, Clive Boddy.

I have seen some who abused others to pump up their publications. Others are always promising, never delivering. Good luck to them. But institutions reward them, do not blame individuals.

I have seen some who abused others to pump up their publications. Others are always promising, never delivering. Good luck to them. But institutions reward them, do not blame individuals.