Destructive Leadership in the Workplace

With relevance across public, private and not-for-profit sectors, and combining perspectives from both the business and psychology worlds, this book is a cross-disciplinary look at how destructive leaders can impact organisations and their workers, and how best to recognise and deal with them.

This text bridges the gap between the theory and the practical application, by taking the academic research and translating this for students, managers and practitioners in the field into practicable interventions they can use in their everyday practice to recognise and resolve issues raised by destructive leaders.

Using case studies throughout, this guide takes the theory and places it in the real world, helping readers take the theory beyond the page and apply it to their practice.

Dr Webster completed a research PhD on The dark side of leadership and its impact on followers in 2016.  She has considerable practical experience in leadership assessment, design and implementation of leadership development programs, and design and implementation of interventions to protect organisations and employees from the effects of destructive leadership.  Vicki is keen to share evidence-based strategies with as many researchers, managers and practitioners as possible, to give them the tools to mitigate the impact of destructive leadership in organisations.

Paula Brough is a Professor of Organisational Psychology in the School of Applied Psychology at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and Leader of the Occupational Health Psychology Research Lab. Paula’s primary research and teaching areas are occupational stress and coping, employee mental health and wellbeing, work engagement, work-life balance, workplace conflict (bullying, harassment, toxic leadership), and the psychosocial work environment. Paula assesses how work environments can be improved via job redesign, supportive leadership practices, and enhanced equity to improve employee health, work commitment, and productivity. Paula works with a variety of organisations to reduce their employee’s experiences of stress and burnout, and to improve employee’s wellbeing, mental health and work-life balance. This work includes group and individual training to improve both long-term leadership skills and the follow-on wellbeing and performance of their workers. Paula has authored over 60 industry reports, over 120 journal articles and book chapters, and has produced 9 scholarly books based on her research. Paula is an Associate Editor of Work & Stress, and is Board member of Journal of Organizational Behaviour, International Journal of Stress Management, and the BPS Work-Life Balance Bulletin.