Examples Of Toxic Leaders

Toxicity in leaders is, unfortunately, a common reality in many organizations and political setups around the world. I grew up in a nation, where people were and even now are victims of toxic political and administrative leaders. I always thought, why some leaders, either consciously or unconsciously, become toxic leaders. What are the subtleties that drive a person to become toxic for the people around him or her? It was quite interesting to read how some of the human psychological needs, play a good role to (Abraham Maslow's (1971) well-known hierarchy of deficiency and growth needs -Lipman-Blumen 2005) make people seek and respond to leaders who assure them in good, bad and ugly ways. I always supposed, getting attracted to noble visions

of non-toxic leaders is not unusual but never, I was able to reason out the attraction to toxic leaders’ grand illusions.
This week’s readings gave me some insights to why people get attracted to toxic leaders. My thoughts again circle back to Maslow's pyramid of needs. In most of the developing and underdeveloped countries, citizens’ concentrate more on the basic economic needs and it doesn’t really matter for them who provides that assurance as long as their basic needs are fulfilled. The citizens, busy fulfilling the base needs fall for and become very vulnerable are slowly come under the grip of the toxic triangle (The toxic triangle: Destructive leaders, susceptible followers, and conducive environments). As far as my thoughts go back in the history, the best example for the toxic triangle and I can only quote partition of India in 1947. In August 1947, when, after three hundred years in India, the British finally left, the subcontinent was partitioned into two independent nation states: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Since then the toxicity of the destructive leaders, their blind followers, and environmental contributions have prevailed forever.