Toxic leadership has seeped into our lives in many ways - politics is one example and the #metoo is a response to toxic leadership as well as toxic masculinity. Toxic leadership has also found its way into our schools. Perhaps you’ve noticed? After all, schools and classrooms reflect the larger community. While toxic classrooms is an important conversation for us to have, in this post I want to focus on exploring the roots of toxic leadership.
I found toxic leadership seeping into my former school and ignored the rising seepage for years and found myself trapped. At the end of the school year, I often spend my summer decompressing reading about leadership principles and thinking about how those ideas might translate to schools, teaching, and to learning. Focusing on different styles of leadership forced me to come to terms with the fact that I was drowning in toxic leadership. Fortunately I escaped. Many people are not so lucky.
As I recover from that experience, I can’t help but wonder if or how the toxic matrix of my school poisoned my teaching. After much reflection I don’t think it impacted my students directly. I do, however, think that a nontoxic experience would have elevated my teaching. In that way my students were impacted by the school’s toxic leadership. There was so much I could have accomplished. My students deserved that - all students deserve teachers at their best.
Recently there has been a lot of talk around the U.S. about toxic leadership and toxic workplaces. Many people believe that our current government exemplifies toxic leadership. The military is reexamining its culture of leadership for toxicity. So it makes sense to explore toxic leadership within schools. The quality of leadership in a school has a big impact on the health and success of those within a school community. The most obvious place to begin examining the toxicity of schools is with school leadership. High quality principals provide support for teachers, students, and families. Principals serve as a guiding force for the professional and educational success within their school. Next, teachers may also be guilty of toxic leadership or creating a toxic classroom. Teaching represents a form of educational leadership that has tremendous consequences on students. Teachers lead students to academic and social success or they lead them out of school and crush their will to learn. Earlier in my career I worked with youth in the juvenile justice and mental health systems. One common thread amongst all these youth was that their experiences in school were all less than positive. In fact, school for many of these youth was a terrible experience. Therefore, it seems important that we address toxic leadership within the social dynamics of the students. How students act within various group settings in class and out of class has a huge impact on their engagement in school and on their learning.
Toxic leadership decimates a workplace by slowly poisoning individuals. Sometimes we don’t even recognize what is happening or the extent of the damage being done to us. Other times we do know what is happening but feel our only choice is to accept the damage in exchange for a paycheck. I know I didn’t realize the amount of physical, emotional, and professional damage being done to me at my last school until I left. I knew things were less than ideal, but I believed in the idea of the school and held out hope things would change. Former colleagues who had left the school described a sense of freedom and renewed energy for teaching. Over time I realized this school was toxic. I just didn’t recognize how toxic until I had stepped outside the murky, purple haze.
Before going further, let’s take a look at common definitions and characteristics of toxic leaders and leadership. Veldsman (2016) describes toxic leadership as “ongoing, deliberate, and intentional action” that “erodes, disables, and destroys” organizations. Toxic workplaces, according to Rhoderic Yapp (2016), model and tolerate a culture of toxicity. These organizations have a short term focus that benefits the leaders. These leaders tend to promote followers to help achieve their goals. These organizations tend to have high staff turnover. However, toxic leaders dismiss these high rates of turnover - saying that those who left “couldn’t hack it” or ‘didn’t get with the program.’ In reality, Yapp explains workers in such places face limited options. Toxic leaders want employees to conform or collude with their behavior. This might be considered passive and active acceptance of toxicity. Yapp refers to reactive and proactive acceptance, in which, “At some point you will be forced down one or two paths. You will have to conform with this behavior and accept it or you will have to collude with it and adopt these behaviors to get promoted.” Another choice does exist - quit. Unfortunately everyone has bills to pay so many folks just do what has to get done. Liking work soon goes out the window for many employees.
Toxic leaders exhibit specific behaviors in the workplace. Yapp (2016) describes six characteristics of toxic leaders:
autocratic
narcissistic
manipulative
intimidating
overly competitive
discriminatory
Jean Kim (2016) extends these characteristics by defining eight toxic traits that cause distress at work and have a negative impact on employees mental health.
Unwillingness to listen to feedback
Excessive self promotion and self-interest
Lying and inconsistency
Lack of moral philosophy
Rewarding incompetence and a lack of accountability
Lack of general support and mentoring
Cliquishness and surrounded by ‘yes’ people
Bullying and harassment
Perhaps we could say that most bosses demonstrate one or two of these behaviors. That sounds pretty normal. However, at what point do we start accepting toxic as normal? Those people who have been privy to individuals who exhibit many of those characteristics can vouch for the detrimental impact that sort of normal has on people and organizations. Accepting toxic as normal allows what is to consume what is possible in the workplace.
Now if that workplace happens to be a school, the ramifications are considerable. Toxic principals destroy teachers’ moral, alienate parents, and decimate what could be accomplished in their school. If teachers manifest toxicity within the classroom, only a small segment of students will benefit and their behavior gradually erodes the joy of or willingness to learn among students. Yet what about toxic leadership among the students? David Sloan Wilson (2014) questions whether or not toxic leadership is an evolutionary strategy and asks if people have to change or do our leadership systems have to change? If toxic leadership is a developmental stage for individuals or groups are teachers responsible for addressing this behavior as an opportunity to learn? If we look back at Yapps’ (2016) list, many of these behaviors are fairly common in group dynamics and student interactions in class. If we as teachers don’t address these behaviors are we preventing students from becoming successful in business or becoming president? More likely, if we don’t address and reshape toxic leadership we will be creating generations of leaders we would hate to work for and workplaces we’d never want to work in. Just as we can’t accept toxic as the new normal for leadership, we can’t accept toxic as ‘kids being kids.’ Let’s intervene early and often to transform the leadership and communities of learning to be more positive and supportive (funny, this is where outdoor and experiential education really benefit schools).
When you’re stuck in a toxic school, you make the best of things. You tell yourself it is the students that matter, etc. You trudge through the toxic swamp and hope things change. Vacations become a period of recovery. However, if and when you make it out (however that happens) it is exactly like Liz Ryan (2016) describes. Life outside the toxicity feels like a breath of fresh air.
References
Aries, E., (2017, March 7). 5 signs you’re in a toxic workplace. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/emiliearies/2017/03/07/5-signs-youre-in-a-toxic-workplace/#7ad8a37a5134
Kim, J., (2016, July 6). 8 traits of toxic leadership to avoid. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culture-shrink/201607/8-traits-toxic-leadership-avoid
Ryan, L. (2016, April 25). How to rebuild your mojo after escaping a toxic workplace. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2016/04/25/how-to-rebuild-your-mojo-after-escaping-a-toxic-workplace/#2281cba61de6
Sloan - Wilson, D., (2014, January 10). Toxic leaders and the social environments that breed them. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/darwinatwork/2014/01/10/toxic-leaders-and-the-social-environments-that-breed-them/#75c32dfdac53
Veldsman, T., (2016, January 13). How toxic leaders destroy people as well as organizations. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/how-toxic-leaders-destroy-people-as-well-as-organisations-51951
Yapp, R., (2016, December 1). The six characteristics of toxic leaders. Retrieved from http://www.leadershipforces.com/six-characteristics-toxic-leaders/