Chapter 6: The Nature, Prevalence, And Outcomes Of Destructive Leadership: A Behavioral and Conglomerate Approach

Two important biases exist in leadership research and writings. First of all, leadership research often equates a leader with a good and efficient leader (Kellerman, 2004). Hence, most writings on leadership are based on the implicit assumption that to improve leadership it is sufficient to do more of what is already regarded as positive and productive. Furthermore, one sees leaders as inherently good people that do not need to worry about whether or not they at times may behave badly or commit mistakes. This position is exemplified by all those text-books that ignore the issue of potential bad or unwanted behaviors among leaders. For instance, the very popular and informative book of Yukl (2010)Leadership in Organizations does not include the terms “abusive supervision” or “destructive leadership” in its subject index. The same is true for Peter G. Northouse’s (2007) book Leadership: Theory and Practice.