Intolerable Cruelty: A Multilevel Examination of the Impact of Toxic Leadership on U.S. Military Units and Service Members

AbstractWe examined the effects of toxic leadership on unit and employee outcomes. Based on Bandura's social learning theory (1977), we predicted that toxic leadership would have a direct impact on unit civility and that unit civility would mediate the relationship between toxic leadership and job satisfaction and organizational commitment. We also predicted that within-unit variability in perceptions of toxic leadership, or toxic leadership congruence, would moderate these effects such that the relationship between toxic leadership and unit and employee outcomes would be stronger when unit members had similar perceptions of their leader's engagement in toxic behavior. Results indicate that toxic leadership behavior is negatively related to unit civility and that unit civility mediates the relationship between toxic leadership and job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Contrary to expectations, toxic leadership congruence did not moderate any of the effects of toxic leadership behavior. Implications for research and practice are discussed.Keywordstoxic leadershipclimatecivilityincivilitycommand climate Notes1 An exploratory factor analysis using varimax rotation with individual-level data was conducted to examine the factor structure of the Toxic Leadership Scale. Results supported a two-factor solution. However, to justify using a single composite to represent toxic leadership behavior, items that double-loaded or loaded only on the second factor were eliminated. Results from this analysis are available upon request from the authors.