Toxic Leadership

I haven’t written much lately for a variety of reasons. For one, it’s been a busy few months for me with a handful of big projects that are just starting to get off the ground. For another, some of my focus has changed, and I’m not as plugged in and engaged as I used to be. I also think I’ve said my piece when it comes to where things stand with the state of Girl Scouts, so there’s no use rehashing it. However, there is one topic that I’ve wanted to write about for quite some time, but I wasn’t sure where to start or how to discuss it. And that subject is toxic leadership.

If you do a Google search for “toxic leadership,” you will end up with about 190,000,000 results. There are also tons of books about the subject as well, so I’m not going to say anything profound that hasn’t already been said. But if you’re not familiar with the subject, here’s a summary. To quote the Department of the Army, “Toxic leadership is defined as a combination of self-centered attitudes, motivations, and behaviors that have adverse effects on subordinates, the organization, and mission performance.”  Some traits expressed by toxic leaders include arrogance, dishonesty, and a sense of entitlement. They usually are also manipulative, abusive, and narcissistic. They maintain control by keeping everyone off-balance by promoting drama and chaos. Employees under them work in a fearful and distrustful environment. Bullying runs rampant. Sometimes, this toxicity can pervade the entire organization and it becomes systemic and part of its culture. Firing just one person doesn’t do the trick. Rooting out the bad behavior across all levels takes time, and culture changes are necessary.

Through the years, I’ve found that many people are incredulous when something bad happens in Girl Scouts. It’s as if they believe that because we’re a non-profit organization whose purpose is “good,” we’re immune to the ills and evils of society. At some point they always say something along the lines of, “How could this happen? This is Girl Scouts!” I hate to break it to you, but we’re susceptible to toxic leadership just like any other organization out there. In fact, I wonder if because we’re perceived as “innocent,” we’re more of a subconscious target for narcissists. I also believe that we’re quick to make excuses for bad behavior, and we tend to shy away from calling it out or holding someone accountable. This sets us up to be taken advantage of because narcissists count on getting off easy if they’re actually called out on their bad behavior. They’ll play nice while they’re sitting in time out, but they go right back to their antics once the dust settles (and usually become worse). But this is a dangerous game, because they’ll continue to destroy the organization until they’re stopped by either their removal, their own self-implosion, or until there’s nothing left to corrupt.

I fully believe that a lot of our struggles as an organization over the past two decades have been due to toxic leadership on both the national and council levels. I’m not going to name names or give specific examples because I don’t want to get slapped with defamation lawsuits, but when you hear about the stories and look at the outcomes, it’s pretty obvious if you’re familiar with the qualities of toxic leadership and its fallout. I also have a theory that the implementation of the Core Business Strategy allowed toxic leadership to gain a foothold and flourish, but delving into that topic would probably be on the scale of a research paper, and someone could earn a degree from the results.

Most of what’s been written about toxic leadership discusses what goes on in the workplace and employees, but I believe that its effects can extend to a volunteer base as well. Volunteers aren’t able to be adequately supported by stressed out staff, and they become discouraged by the high turnover rate. Low volunteer retention rates reflect this and death spirals occur.

Toxic leadership is pervasive to all areas of an organization. In addition to affecting operations, governance weakens under toxic leadership. The democratic process is snuffed out. Open, honest, and collaborative communication is the key to the democratic process, but toxic leaders use manipulation and obfuscation tactics to subvert effective communication. Narcissists view questions as threatening to their ego, so transparency goes out the window. They also maintain an iron grip on information flow and warp the truth, so sometimes board members fall under the spell of charismatic leaders and have no idea of what’s really going on until it’s too late.

As a volunteer, I’m not really sure what you can do to keep toxic leadership out of your council since the board of directors hires and fires the CEO, and volunteers have no control over who is hired on staff. If board members become complacent or blind to what’s going on, then it becomes hard to enact change. If you’re so inclined, becoming actively involved in governance by serving as a delegate is key even when times are good. Waiting to become involved in governance until things have already melted down will mean you’ll have an even tougher row to hoe. Making sure your governance documents are closed to loopholes that toxic leadership can take advantage of is highly suggested. If power is consolidated to a few people in governance documents, membership organizations run the risk of becoming easily hijacked by toxic leadership. Narcissists do not play fairly and make up their own rules, so governance documents should be as clear as possible. Words matter.

All this said, I do believe that as of March 2024, we finally have some healthy and positive leadership on the national level. But it takes a long time to recover from toxic leadership. Toxic leaders leave a wide path of destruction and craters in their wake, and sorting out the damage and figuring out ways to rebuild takes collaboration, time, and patience. Hopefully we are on the path to recovery.