How Toxic Leadership Slowly Changes Everything Around It

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Most people who find themselves under toxic leadership do not recognize it immediately.

That may sound strange. Surely if a leader is truly destructive, people should know it. But that is rarely how these situations develop. There usually isn’t a morning when everyone walks into the office and suddenly realizes, “We have a toxic leader.”

It is much more subtle than that.

Something simply begins to feel wrong.

A meeting that once felt comfortable now feels tense. People who used to speak freely begin choosing their words more carefully. Someone who normally offers ideas stops offering them. A person leaves the leader’s office and thinks, What just happened in there? He knows the conversation bothered him, but if someone asked exactly what the leader did wrong, he might have difficulty explaining it.

That inability to explain it can become part of the problem.

Because when we cannot clearly identify what is wrong, we tend to question our own perception of it.

Maybe I’m being too sensitive.

Maybe I misunderstood him.

Maybe she was just having a bad day.

Maybe that’s simply his leadership style.

And sometimes one of those explanations is exactly right. Leaders are human. We become frustrated, communicate poorly, misunderstand someone’s motives, make bad decisions, and occasionally say something we would very much like to retrieve thirty seconds after saying it.

One bad interaction does not make a toxic leader.

The important question is what happens when the unusual becomes usual.

Before people understand the problem, they often feel the problem.

I think this is one of the least understood characteristics of toxic leadership.

Human beings are remarkably good at detecting patterns before we are able to articulate them. We notice facial expressions, changes in tone, who gets interrupted, whose ideas are dismissed, what happens when someone disagrees, who gets blamed when something fails, and whether today’s rules are the same rules we were operating under yesterday.

We are taking in all of this information even when we are not consciously analyzing it.

So a person may say, “I don’t know what it is, but something isn’t right.”

Pay attention to that sentence.

It does not prove toxic leadership. Feelings are not infallible, and perception is not the same thing as truth. But neither should that perception automatically be dismissed. It may be the mind recognizing a pattern for which it does not yet have words.

This becomes especially revealing when several otherwise reasonable people independently begin experiencing the same thing.

They start comparing notes.

“Does he talk to you that way?”

“I thought it was just me.”

“Have you noticed that nobody disagrees with her anymore?”

“Why do I always feel like I’ve done something wrong after talking with him?”

Those conversations are important because people are beginning to put language around what they have been experiencing.

The fog is beginning to acquire edges.

Then people begin adapting.

This is where the problem moves from an individual leader’s behavior into the culture of the organization.

People are remarkably adaptive. If telling the truth produces anger, they become careful with the truth. If disagreement produces retaliation, they disagree less often. If bringing bad news gets the messenger blamed, they begin editing bad news before delivering it.

Nobody has to issue a policy.

People learn.

“Don’t bring that up in the staff meeting.”

“Let me tell her.”

“Wait until he’s in a better mood.”

“Don’t disagree with him in front of everybody.”

“I wouldn’t put that in an email.”

Those sentences should concern any leader who hears them.

They mean the organization has begun developing an unofficial operating system around the leader’s weaknesses.

And once that happens, something very strange occurs. From the leader’s perspective, things may actually appear to be getting better.

There are fewer disagreements. Meetings are easier. Nobody challenges decisions. Problems seem to have decreased. People are more compliant.

The leader may interpret that as unity.

But silence is not necessarily agreement.

Sometimes silence is simply what people do when they have learned that speaking is expensive.

That creates a terrible leadership paradox: the more successful a leader becomes at discouraging disagreement, the less trustworthy the information reaching that leader becomes.

He thinks he has gained control when he has actually lost visibility.

This is why toxic leadership is ultimately a stewardship problem.

Jesus made an extraordinary distinction when He spoke about authority. He acknowledged that the rulers of the Gentiles “lord it over” those beneath them and then told His disciples, “It shall not be this way among you” (Matthew 20:25–26).

Jesus was not abolishing authority. Scripture clearly recognizes authority and responsibility. He was correcting our natural tendency to confuse having authority with owning the people over whom authority is exercised.

We are stewards.

That changes the question.

The question is no longer merely, “Do I have the authority to do this?”

You may.

The better question becomes, “What is my use of authority doing to the people God has entrusted to me?”

That is a much more uncomfortable question.

It requires us to look beyond our intentions and examine our fruit.

Toxic leadership often begins with genuine strength.

This is another reason it can be difficult to recognize.

Destructive leaders are not necessarily incompetent leaders. In fact, sometimes they are remarkably capable.

A decisive leader gets things moving. A visionary leader sees possibilities others miss. A confident leader gives people courage during uncertainty. A demanding leader raises standards. A detail-oriented leader catches things everyone else overlooked.

Those are strengths.

But every strength requires character to govern it.

Decisiveness without humility can become domination. Confidence without self-awareness can become an inability to receive correction. High standards without compassion can make people afraid to make mistakes. Attention to detail without trust can become micromanagement. Persistence without teachability can become stubbornness.

This is why I am reluctant to diagnose the inner psychology of a destructive leader from a distance. Perhaps the person is insecure. Perhaps pride is involved. Perhaps fear, ambition, control, or a need for approval is driving the behavior. Those possibilities are worth exploring with the leader, but we cannot see another person’s heart.

We can, however, observe behavior.

And we can examine fruit.

One of the hardest toxic leaders to confront is the one who gets results.

If someone treats people terribly and accomplishes nothing, organizations usually solve the problem eventually.

The difficult situation is the leader who produces.

Sales are up. Attendance is growing. Projects get completed. Donations increase. Deadlines are met. The board likes the numbers.

Meanwhile, underneath those numbers, good people are quietly leaving.

Others remain but stop taking initiative. Middle managers become shock absorbers, constantly protecting employees from the leader and protecting the leader from discovering how much protection everyone requires.

Eventually someone says the sentence that has protected a great deal of destructive leadership:

“Yes, but he gets results.”

That should cause us to ask what we mean by results.

Certainly ask, “What did this leader accomplish?”

But also ask, “What did it cost to accomplish it?”

Then ask an even better question: “What is happening to the people under this person’s leadership?”

Are they becoming stronger, wiser, more capable, more truthful, and increasingly able to lead without constant supervision? Are they comfortable admitting mistakes? Can they disagree respectfully? Are new leaders developing?

Or are people becoming cautious, dependent, secretive, resentful, exhausted, and afraid?

Jesus told us that a tree is known by its fruit. Leadership produces fruit too.

We should look at all of it.

But toxic leadership is rarely just a toxic-leader problem.

Eventually it becomes an accountability problem.

Someone usually knows.

Often several people know.

Sometimes they do not yet have good language for what they know, but they know enough to realize something is not healthy.

Then the explanations begin.

“That’s just his personality.”

“She has very high standards.”

“You know how he gets.”

“He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“She is under tremendous pressure.”

“He really does care about people.”

Some of those things may be completely true.

They simply do not answer the question.

Personality can explain behavior. It does not excuse character. Pressure can help us understand someone’s reaction without removing responsibility for it. Good intentions do not automatically make harmful behavior harmless.

This is where good people can unintentionally become part of a destructive system.

They comfort the injured employee. They smooth things over. They explain what the leader “really meant.” They repair damaged relationships. They quietly move someone to another department. They absorb the leader’s anger so someone else doesn’t have to.

Their motives may be admirable.

But there comes a point at which continually protecting everyone from the consequences of someone’s behavior stops being kindness and becomes enablement.

This is particularly important for anyone who possesses genuine authority to intervene—boards, elders, owners, executives, supervisors, and senior leaders.

At some point they must ask their own stewardship question:

What are we doing with what we know?

How do we know when we have crossed the line from difficult leadership into something genuinely destructive?

We stop trying to read motives and start looking for patterns.

Are people increasingly afraid to disagree? Is bad news being filtered before it reaches the leader? Are similar relational problems occurring with different people? Are capable people repeatedly leaving? Do people spend unusual amounts of time discussing how to approach the leader? Does the leader regularly blame others when things go wrong? Are apologies followed by changed behavior, or merely another round of the same behavior?

No single answer proves toxic leadership.

But repeated patterns matter.

And there is one indicator I would watch very carefully:

What happens when the leader is confronted?

A healthy leader can react badly at first. Nobody enjoys discovering that other people see something ugly in us that we have not seen ourselves. Embarrassment and defensiveness are human reactions.

So I would not judge someone entirely by the first five minutes.

Watch what happens afterward.

Does the leader come back and ask questions? Does he seek clarification? Can he acknowledge what is true without immediately explaining why someone else caused it? Does he apologize specifically? Does he invite accountability? Most importantly, does his behavior begin to change?

That is repentance in practical clothing.

A destructive leader often moves in the opposite direction. The conversation becomes about the motives of the person who raised the concern. History gets rewritten. Allies are recruited. Blame moves elsewhere. Or there is an impressive apology, everyone breathes a sigh of relief, and six weeks later essentially the same thing happens again.

At that point, continuing to have the same conversation is not accountability.

It is repetition.

So what should you actually do?

First, slow down enough to identify what you are seeing. That vague sense that something is wrong needs to move from perception to observation. Write down actual behaviors, dates, conversations, and outcomes. Separate what happened from what you think the leader intended.

Second, compare your perception carefully with trustworthy people who have direct knowledge of the situation. The purpose is not to build a coalition or gossip about the leader. You are trying to determine whether you are seeing an isolated incident, your own misunderstanding, or a genuine pattern.

Third, when appropriate, take the concern to the person involved. Describe behavior rather than assigning motives. “You’re a toxic leader” gives someone almost nothing useful to work with. “Three times in the last month, someone questioned a decision in our staff meeting and you responded by publicly criticizing that person” gives us something we can actually examine.

Fourth, establish what change would look like. Accountability cannot simply mean, “Please do better.” What specifically needs to change? Who will help? Who will evaluate progress? When will you revisit it? And if the pattern continues, what happens then?

Those questions turn concern into a process.

And they also give the leader something profoundly important: a genuine opportunity to repent, grow, repair relationships, and become a healthier leader.

The objective should never be to catch someone being toxic.

The objective is transformation.

And then there is one more leader we need to examine.

Me.

And you.

It would be wonderfully convenient to finish this article thinking about the three people we wish would read it.

But leadership gives every one of us the ability to create an environment in which people become reluctant to tell us the truth.

The more authority we possess, the greater that danger becomes.

So instead of asking people, “Do you think I’m a good leader?”—a question practically begging for reassurance—we might ask something more useful.

“When am I difficult to tell the truth to?”

“What happens when someone disagrees with me?”

“Where does my greatest strength become difficult for other people?”

“What subjects do people hesitate to bring to me?”

And perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all:

“Is there something the people around me know about me that I don’t know about myself?”

Then listen.

Don’t explain.

Don’t defend.

Don’t correct their perception while they are still trying to describe it.

Try to understand.

Because one of the great dangers of toxic leadership is that everybody else can feel something is wrong long before the leader realizes anything is wrong at all.

Leadership is faithful stewardship applied to people.

Those people do not belong to us. The organization does not belong to us. The ministry does not belong to us. Even the abilities with which we lead do not belong to us.

They have been entrusted to us.

So eventually the measure of our leadership cannot merely be what we built, how quickly we grew, how much we earned, how many people attended, or how many objectives we accomplished.

We must also ask:

What happened to the people God entrusted to us while we were leading them?

And perhaps wisdom is learning to ask that question while there are still people around us willing to answer it.

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Five Coaching Questions

1. What has changed in the atmosphere around this leader? Before trying to diagnose the leader, identify what people are experiencing. What used to happen naturally that people now hesitate to do?
2. What observable behaviors are producing that change? Separate facts from conclusions. What was actually said or done, how often has it happened, and what happened afterward?
3. What have people learned to do in order to function around this leader? Are they withholding information, avoiding disagreement, rehearsing conversations, seeking witnesses, working through intermediaries, or simply becoming quiet?
4. Who has both the responsibility and the authority to address the pattern, and what has kept that person or group from acting? Fear? Loyalty? Results? Conflict avoidance? Uncertainty? Lack of evidence? Understanding the obstacle is often essential to removing it.
5. If I am the leader being described, what would genuine repentance and measurable change look like over the next ninety days? Not merely an apology—what behaviors would change, who would be permitted to speak into my leadership, and how would we know that trust is actually being rebuilt?

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