Research Handbook on Destructive Leadership

Book excerpt: In this Research Handbook, Birgit Schyns, Pedro Neves and Kimberley Breevaart bring together expert contributing authors to lay out a state-of-the-art overview of destructive leadership and explore how this can cause harm to individuals, teams, organizations, and even societies. Outlining a breadth of methodologies, the book provides new avenues for the investigation of destructive leadership to stimulate more systematic, high-quality research on the topic. Chapters begin by discussing the many different forms that destructive leadership can take, including abusive supervision, narcissism, inconsistent leadership, laissez-faire leadership and exploitative leadership. They pay close attention to the boundary conditions and contexts in which destructive leadership can arise, specifically in family businesses, sports and in times of crisis. Addressing the difficulties of studying destructive leadership, the book concludes by critically evaluating existing methodologies. The Research Handbook on Destructive Leadership will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of business ethics, business leadership and organization studies. It will also appeal to practitioners such as consultants and human resource professionals seeking to gain insights into destructive leadership practices and how to address them.