IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v11y2021i2p54-d568143.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Exploration of Leadership in Post-Primary Schools: The Emergence of Toxic Leadership

Author

Listed:
  • Nicola Snow

    (School of Education, University of Limerick, V94 PX58 Limerick, Ireland)

  • Niamh Hickey

    (School of Education, University of Limerick, V94 PX58 Limerick, Ireland)

  • Nicolaas Blom

    (School of Education, University of Limerick, V94 PX58 Limerick, Ireland)

  • Liam O’Mahony

    (School of Education, University of Limerick, V94 PX58 Limerick, Ireland)

  • Patricia Mannix-McNamara

    (School of Education, University of Limerick, V94 PX58 Limerick, Ireland)

Abstract

The focus of this research was to explore school leadership in post-primary schools using an adapted Schmidt Toxic Leadership Scale ©, which the authors recalibrated to examine both constructive and destructive leadership, the impact on individuals professional and personal lives, and on staff morale. Using a mixed methods approach, data were collected from 111 teaching professionals via online survey. Findings indicated a notable emergence of toxic leadership experiences which is reported in this paper. In addition, participants reported various and concerning negative consequences including: decreased job satisfaction, professional agency, and staff morale; reduced performance; increased attrition; increased negative behaviours including incivility; stifled career development; reduced self-confidence; depression; stress and anxiety; fear; tearfulness; humiliation; anger; mistrust; exhaustion; burnout; health issues; migraines; weight gain; substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, as well as, negative consequences on personal/home life. The results indicate that the quality of leadership was perceived to influence the health of respondents and had a bearing on their occupational wellbeing. Further research is needed to understand the nature of toxic leadership in education and its effects on organisational members.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicola Snow & Niamh Hickey & Nicolaas Blom & Liam O’Mahony & Patricia Mannix-McNamara, 2021. "An Exploration of Leadership in Post-Primary Schools: The Emergence of Toxic Leadership," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-21, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:11:y:2021:i:2:p:54-:d:568143
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/11/2/54/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/11/2/54/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nivedita Singh & Santoshi Sengupta & Santosh Dev, 2019. "Toxic Leadership: The Most Menacing Form of Leadership," Chapters, in: Maria Fors Brandebo & Aida Alvinius (ed.), Dark Sides of Organizational Behavior and Leadership, IntechOpen.
    2. Anke Arnaud & Marshall Schminke, 2012. "The Ethical Climate and Context of Organizations: A Comprehensive Model," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(6), pages 1767-1780, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patricia Mannix-McNamara & Niamh Hickey & Sarah MacCurtain & Nicolaas Blom, 2021. "The Dark Side of School Culture," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-19, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elizabeth Sheedy & Patrick Garcia & Denise Jepsen, 2021. "The Role of Risk Climate and Ethical Self-interest Climate in Predicting Unethical Pro-organisational Behaviour," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 173(2), pages 281-300, October.
    2. Grégoire Bollmann & Franciska Krings, 2016. "Workgroup Climates and Employees’ Counterproductive Work Behaviours: A Social-Cognitive Perspective," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 184-209, March.
    3. M. Guerci & Giovanni Radaelli & Elena Siletti & Stefano Cirella & A. Rami Shani, 2015. "The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices and Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Ethical Climates: An Employee Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 325-342, January.
    4. Bryce, Cormac & Webb, Rob & Cheevers, Carly & Ring, P. & Clark, G., 2016. "Should the insurance industry be banking on risk escalation for solvency II?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 131-139.
    5. Marco Castellani & Linda Alengoz & Niccolò Casnici & Flaminio Squazzoni, 2022. "A role-game laboratory experiment on the influence of country prospects reports on investment decisions in two artificial organizational settings," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 21(1), pages 121-149, June.
    6. Sebastian Goebel & Barbara E. Weißenberger, 2017. "The Relationship Between Informal Controls, Ethical Work Climates, and Organizational Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 505-528, March.
    7. K. Praveen Parboteeah & Matthias Weiss & Martin Hoegl, 2024. "Ethical Climates Across National Contexts: A Meta-Analytical Investigation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 573-590, January.
    8. Burak Oc & Maryam Kouchaki, 2024. "The More the Merrier: How Psychological Standing and Work Group Size Explain Managers’ Willingness to Communicate About Unethical Conduct in Their Work Group," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(4), pages 775-786, April.
    9. Hannah, Sean T. & Jennings, Peter L. & Bluhm, Dustin & Peng, Ann Chunyan & Schaubroeck, John M., 2014. "Duty orientation: Theoretical development and preliminary construct testing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 220-238.
    10. Bellora-Bienengräber, Lucia & Radtke, Robin R. & Widener, Sally K., 2022. "Counterproductive work behaviors and work climate: The role of an ethically focused management control system and peers’ self-focused behavior," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    11. Bram Constandt & Els Waegeneer & Annick Willem, 2019. "Ethical Code Effectiveness in Football Clubs: A Longitudinal Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 621-634, May.
    12. Weziak-Bialowolska, Dorota & Lee, Matthew T. & Cowden, Richard G. & Bialowolski, Piotr & Chen, Ying & VanderWeele, Tyler J. & McNeely, Eileen, 2023. "Psychological caring climate at work, mental health, well-being, and work-related outcomes: Evidence from a longitudinal study and health insurance data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 323(C).
    13. Karen Winterich & Andrea Morales & Vikas Mittal, 2015. "Disgusted or Happy, It is not so Bad: Emotional Mini-Max in Unethical Judgments," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(2), pages 343-360, August.
    14. Gong, Taeshik & Wang, Chen-Ya & Lee, Kangcheol, 2020. "The consequences of customer-oriented constructive deviance in luxury-hotel restaurants," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    15. Cormac Bryce & Thorsten Chmura & Rob Webb & Joel Stiebale & Carly Cheevers, 2019. "Internally Reporting Risk in Financial Services: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(2), pages 493-512, May.
    16. S. Duane Hansen & Benjamin B. Dunford & Bradley J. Alge & Christine L. Jackson, 2016. "Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethical Leadership, and Trust Propensity: A Multi-Experience Model of Perceived Ethical Climate," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(4), pages 649-662, September.
    17. Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska & Piotr Bialowolski & Carlued Leon & Tamar Koosed & Eileen McNeely, 2020. "Psychological Climate for Caring and Work Outcomes: A Virtuous Cycle," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-18, September.
    18. James Weber & Akwasi Opoku-Dakwa, 2022. "Ethical Work Climate 2.0: A Normative Reformulation of Victor and Cullen’s 1988 Framework," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 178(3), pages 629-646, July.
    19. Xiaoming Zheng & Xin Qin & Xin Liu & Hui Liao, 2019. "Will Creative Employees Always Make Trouble? Investigating the Roles of Moral Identity and Moral Disengagement," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 653-672, July.
    20. Jie Feng & Yucheng Zhang & Xinmei Liu & Long Zhang & Xiao Han, 2018. "Just the Right Amount of Ethics Inspires Creativity: A Cross-Level Investigation of Ethical Leadership, Intrinsic Motivation, and Employee Creativity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 645-658, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:11:y:2021:i:2:p:54-:d:568143. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.