Dark Side Leaders: Are their Intentions Benign or Toxic?

Abstract

The research will assess and evaluate dark side leadership, including an overview on leadership spectrum, potential causes, derailment, and options for minimizing unethical leadership in organizations. Based on current research, dark side leaders can possess destructive traits that result in toxic and negative consequences with employee morale, productivity, and organizational cultures. These traits can range from low risk to high risk and are manageable. Another aspect of this research is to explore inherent genes that may trigger personality disorders based on internal and external pressures within organizations. Personality disorder traits are extreme risk and result in dysfunctional maladaptive behaviors that may not be resolved. Based on the range of dark traits, proposed approaches will provide options for dark side leaders with unethical behaviors, including best practices, recommendations, therapy, and medications. The benefit of this research is to identify, assess, and provide solutions for minimizing destructive behaviors in dark side leaders.