Abstract
Power is often assumed to reward competence, character, and contribution. Yet in many modern institutions, a troubling paradox persists: individuals who ascend to positions of influence are not always those best equipped to steward it, but those most skilled at acquiring and consolidating it. This article interrogates the rise of toxic personalities, charismatic yet corrosive actors who weaponise influence, manipulate systems, and mobilise others into patterns of silence, complicity, or allegiance. Once embedded, such individuals are rarely confronted directly. Instead, organisations find themselves orbiting around them, managing the unmanageable, normalising dysfunction, and mistaking control for leadership. The result is a slow but profound erosion of institutional integrity: decision-making is distorted, trust is depleted, talent exits, and reputational capital is quietly but steadily undermined. What makes this phenomenon particularly dangerous is not merely the presence of toxicity, but the collective blindness that sustains it, structures that reward results without scrutinising methods, cultures that confuse loyalty with silence, and governance systems that fail to detect or discipline destructive power plays. This article seeks to surface and name these dynamics with clarity. It examines how toxic personalities rise, the mechanisms through which they entrench themselves, and the systemic vulnerabilities that enable their persistence. More importantly, it offers a framework for organisational awareness and response, moving beyond personality management toward disciplined institutional design, ethical leadership, and accountability structures capable of resisting manipulation. At its core, this is a call to conscience. Institutions that ignore the moral dimension of power ultimately become shaped by its abuse. Confronting toxic power is therefore not only a matter of performance or culture, but of institutional survival and legitimacy.
Introduction
Power, in its ideal form, is entrusted for stewardship, to guide, to protect, and to advance the collective good. Institutions are built on this assumption: that those who rise to positions of authority will exercise judgment with integrity and influence with restraint. Yet across corporate boardrooms, public institutions, faith-based organisations, and civic structures, a different reality is increasingly evident. Power does not always select for conscience. In many cases, it is captured by those most adept not at serving the system, but at bending it (Arda & Kanten 2023; Singh et al 2023; Michalak & Ashkanasy 2020).
The modern institution is particularly vulnerable to this distortion (Asamoah-Appiah et al 2024; Sulaeman et al 2024; Koropets 2019; Taştan 2017; Cheang & Appelbaum 2015). Performance pressures, complex hierarchies, and the premium placed on results can obscure the means by which those results are achieved. Charisma is mistaken for character, decisiveness for wisdom, and control for leadership. Within such environments, toxic personalities do not merely survive, they often thrive. They rise by leveraging perception, cultivating dependency, and neutralising dissent, all while maintaining a veneer of effectiveness that shields them from scrutiny. In 2018, the global cost of toxic workplace behaviour to businesses was estimated at over US$1.15 trillion annually (Michalak & Ashkanasy 2018), a figure that has almost certainly escalated in the years since, given rising organisational complexity, increased workforce stressors, and the growing recognition of psychosocial risk factors in the workplace.
What makes these individuals especially difficult to confront is not only their behaviour, but their ability to shape the system around them (Olabiyi et al 2024; Economy 2021). They create networks of loyalty and fear, fragment opposition, and redefine norms until dysfunction appears ordinary. Colleagues and subordinates, even when aware of the toxicity, frequently find themselves constrained, by risk, by uncertainty, or by the subtle erosion of confidence that accompanies prolonged exposure to manipulative power (Abbas & Saad 2020). Over time, the institution itself adapts, shifting from a posture of principled leadership to one of cautious accommodation.
The consequences are rarely immediate, but they are always profound. Culture deteriorates quietly before it collapses visibly. Ethical compromises accumulate incrementally before they erupt into crisis. By the time the damage becomes undeniable, through reputational harm, loss of talent, or strategic failure, the underlying patterns have often been entrenched for years (van der Westhuizen 2021).
This article begins from a simple but uncomfortable premise: toxic power is not an anomaly; it is often a predictable outcome of systems that reward acquisition of influence more than its responsible exercise. To address it requires more than interpersonal skill or conflict management. It demands a re-examination of how institutions define leadership, distribute authority, and enforce accountability.
In the sections that follow, we will explore how toxic personalities rise to power, the mechanisms they use to sustain it, and why otherwise rational organisations fail to act. More importantly, we will consider what it takes to interrupt these patterns, not only by confronting individuals, but by redesigning the conditions that make such power possible.
The Anatomy of Toxic Power
Toxic power rarely announces itself in obvious or easily diagnosable ways. It does not typically begin with overt aggression or visible dysfunction. Instead, it emerges subtly, often cloaked in competence, confidence, and charisma. Early signals are frequently misread as strength: decisiveness is mistaken for clarity, control for discipline, and strong personal presence for leadership capability. For this reason, organisations that rely primarily on surface indicators such as performance metrics, executive presence, or short-term results, are often the most vulnerable (Arda & Kanten 2023; Cheang & Appelbaum 2015).
This ambiguity is well documented in organisational behaviour research. Barbara Kellerman (2004) and Jean Lipman-Blumen (2005) highlight how destructive leaders can initially appear effective, particularly in high-pressure, performance-driven environments where results are prioritised over process. Similarly, Birgit Schyns and Jan Schilling (2013) show that the behavioural overlap between effective and destructive leadership often obscures early detection, allowing harmful patterns to take root before they are recognised.
Accurately diagnosing toxic power therefore requires moving beyond isolated behaviours to examine patterns over time, specifically, how influence is acquired, exercised, and protected. The critical question is not whether an individual delivers results, but how those results are achieved, at what cost, and with what systemic effects. Toxic power is less about episodic difficulty and more about enduring distortion.
At its core, toxic power reflects a convergence of intent and capability. It is not simply difficult behaviour; it is strategic behaviour directed toward control, often at the expense of institutional integrity. Such individuals are frequently highly perceptive, with a refined ability to read organisational dynamics, informal networks, and power structures. They understand where influence resides, how decisions are shaped, and where oversight is weakest.
Their effectiveness lies precisely in this sophistication. Rather than confronting the system directly, they operate within it, leveraging its incentives, exploiting its blind spots, and gradually reshaping it to their advantage. Influence is consolidated through selective alliances, information is managed to control narratives, and accountability mechanisms are subtly neutralised. This aligns with research on organisational politics by Ferris et al. (2019), which demonstrates how political skill, when deployed without ethical constraint, can be used not only to navigate systems but to reconfigure them.
In this way, toxic power is not immediately disruptive; it is adaptive. It embeds itself, normalises its presence, and only reveals its full impact once patterns have hardened and consequences have compounded. By the time it becomes visible as dysfunction, it is often already deeply structural, making early recognition not just beneficial, but essential.
A useful diagnostic lens is to examine four interlocking dimensions:
1. The Construction of Influence: Charm, Competence, and Control
Toxic personalities often rise on the back of genuine strengths. They may be articulate, decisive, and results-oriented. Early in their ascent, they build credibility by delivering visible wins or aligning themselves with influential sponsors. However, beneath this is a deliberate effort to control narratives and perceptions through strategic self-presentation.
This aligns with research on Impression Management and Narcissistic Leadership, which shows that leaders high in narcissism can initially appear highly effective while masking longer-term dysfunction (Grijalva et al. 2015; Spain et al. 2014).
Diagnostic signal: Disproportionate dependence on one individual, combined with leadership reluctance to question their methods.
2. The Engineering of Dependency: Divide, Isolate, and Bind
Once influence is established, the next move is consolidation. Toxic actors thrive in environments where information is fragmented. They may withhold knowledge, create artificial complexity, or position themselves as the sole connector between teams.
At a relational level, they cultivate loyalty in some while marginalising others. This reflects dynamics captured in Social Network Theory and Social Dominance Theory, where control over resources and network centrality enables disproportionate influence (Burt 2005; Sidanius & Pratto 1999; Kilduff & Brass 2010).
Diagnostic signal: Silos deepen; communication becomes centralised and opaque; teams fragment.
3. The Manipulation of Reality: Narrative Control and Gaslighting
A defining feature of toxic power is the ability to shape perceived reality. When challenged, these individuals deflect, reframe, or discredit others, creating confusion and doubt. Over time, those raising concerns may question their own judgment.
This mirrors the construct of Gaslighting, increasingly examined in organisational contexts as a form of epistemic control (Sweet 2019; Abramson 2014). Such manipulation destabilises shared understanding and reinforces power asymmetry.
Diagnostic signal: Persistent misalignment between frontline experience and leadership narratives.
4. The Suppression of Accountability: Intimidation, Fatigue, and Normalisation
The final layer of toxic power is protection. Accountability mechanisms are neutralised through intimidation, overload, or reputational shielding.
Over time, organisations adapt. What was once unacceptable becomes normalised. This reflects the phenomenon of Organizational Silence, where employees withhold concerns due to fear or futility (Morrison 2014; Detert & Edmondson 2011).
Diagnostic signal: Repeated concerns without consequence; high performance paired with high turnover; quiet compliance.
Taken together, these dimensions reveal that toxic power is systemic, not incidental. It is sustained not only by individuals, but by organisational conditions that enable and protect such behaviour. The critical question is not simply who the problem is, but what conditions allow it to persist.
Understanding this anatomy is essential. Without it, organisations risk treating symptoms while leaving the underlying architecture of dysfunction intact.
The Carnage of Toxic Power
The damage caused by toxic power is rarely immediate or dramatic at the outset. It accumulates, often quietly, incrementally, and often invisibly, until the organisation finds itself contending with consequences that far exceed the influence of any single individual. What makes this carnage particularly insidious is that it unfolds under the cover of apparent normalcy, and in some cases, even strong short-term performance. Recent research in Organisational Behaviour confirms that destructive leadership often coexists with short-term results, masking long-term harm (Mackey et al. 2021; Park et al. 2020). By the time it is recognised, the institutional cost is already deeply embedded.
At a business level, the impact can be understood across six critical domains:
1. Erosion of Decision Integrity
Toxic power fundamentally distorts organisational decision-making by reshaping both the flow and integrity of information. In such environments, data is selectively filtered to reinforce dominant narratives, dissenting voices are muted or self-censored, and alternative perspectives are systematically excluded from deliberation. What reaches senior leadership is therefore often a curated version of reality, one which is sanitised, incomplete, or strategically manipulated to align with the preferences of powerful actors. Leaders may believe they are making informed decisions, yet the inputs on which those decisions rest are already compromised.
Over time, this erosion of informational integrity produces deep strategic misalignment. Decisions fail not necessarily because of flawed intent or lack of capability, but because they are constructed on distorted assumptions. Execution gaps widen, organisational responses become reactive rather than anticipatory, and the institution gradually loses its capacity for accurate sense-making.
Emerging research reinforces this dynamic. Studies on employee voice and information asymmetry demonstrate that climates characterised by fear, dominance, or punitive leadership significantly suppress upward communication and reduce the diversity and quality of inputs into decision processes. Xu et al. find that when psychological safety is low, employees are less likely to share critical insights or challenge flawed assumptions, even when organisational risks are evident. Similarly, Elizabeth W. Morrison (2023) highlights how silence is not merely the absence of voice but an adaptive response to perceived power imbalances, one that ultimately deprives organisations of the very information needed to make sound strategic choices.
In this way, toxic power does not only damage culture; it degrades cognition at the organisational level. It replaces collective intelligence with controlled narratives, turning decision-making from a process of discovery into an exercise in reinforcement, often with costly consequences.
Business consequence: Poor strategic choices, misallocated capital, and a widening gap between executive intent and operational reality.
2. The Weaponisation of Office Politics
In toxic environments, office politics ceases to be a peripheral dynamic and instead becomes the dominant operating system of the organisation. Influence is no longer anchored in competence, contribution, or value creation, but in strategic positioning, alliance-building, and the careful management of perceptions. Success becomes less about what is achieved and more about who is aligned, who is protected, and who controls the narrative.
Within such systems, visibility is curated, loyalty is rewarded over merit, and access to power is mediated through informal networks rather than formal structures. Decision-making forums are often preconditioned by behind-the-scenes lobbying, and outcomes reflect negotiated interests rather than objective evaluation. As a result, organisational energy is diverted away from execution and innovation toward political navigation and self-preservation.
This dynamic is well supported in contemporary scholarship on organisational politics. Landells & Albrecht (2021) demonstrate that while political skill can be a neutral or even constructive capability, its unethical application entrenches exclusionary power structures and marginalises those outside dominant coalitions. Similarly, Gerald R. Ferris et al. (2022) show how politically charged environments distort performance management systems, where evaluations are influenced less by objective outcomes and more by relational proximity and influence tactics.
Toxic actors thrive in such conditions. They cultivate inner circles that consolidate access to information and opportunity, orchestrate conflicts to weaken perceived rivals, and manipulate organisational narratives to maintain dominance. Over time, this creates a closed system in which dissent is reframed as disloyalty, transparency is selectively applied, and institutional priorities are subordinated to the preservation of power.
The cumulative effect is profound. Trust erodes, high-performing individuals disengage or exit, and the organisation’s strategic focus becomes increasingly fragmented. What emerges is not merely a politicised workplace, but a system in which politics itself becomes the primary currency, frequently displacing purpose, distorting performance, and ultimately undermining long-term organisational viability.
Business consequence: Distorted incentives, compromised meritocracy, reduced collaboration, and a shift from performance to politics.
3. Talent Flight and the Hollowing Out of Capability
High-performing individuals, particularly those anchored in strong values and professional integrity, are often the first to disengage or exit toxic environments. They tend to recognise early that merit, effort, and ethical contribution are secondary to proximity to power and political alignment. For such individuals, the implicit psychological contract is broken: performance is no longer the pathway to influence or advancement. What remains is not a high-performance culture, but a compliance-driven system where silence, accommodation, and self-preservation are rewarded over capability and courage.
As these individuals withdraw, either psychologically or physically, the organisation experiences a subtle but profound shift. Constructive challenge diminishes, intellectual rigor declines, and the diversity of thought necessary for sound decision-making erodes. Those who remain are more likely to be either politically adaptive or risk-averse, reinforcing a cycle in which conformity displaces critical thinking and innovation.
Empirical research reinforces this pattern. Harms et al. (2021) identify a strong relationship between destructive leadership behaviours and increased employee burnout, disengagement, and turnover intentions. Similarly, Li et al. (2023) demonstrate that toxic leadership not only accelerates voluntary exits but also diminishes organisational commitment among those who remain, creating a dual burden of attrition and disengagement.
The loss incurred is not merely numerical; it is cognitive and strategic. Organisations lose critical thinking capacity, institutional knowledge, and the very individuals most capable of driving transformation and long-term value creation. Informal networks of expertise fracture, mentorship pipelines weaken, and succession planning becomes increasingly fragile.
The business consequences are both immediate and compounding: rising turnover and replacement costs, declining innovation outputs, weakened leadership pipelines, and the gradual erosion of institutional memory. Over time, this hollowing-out effect leaves the organisation less resilient, less adaptive, and increasingly vulnerable to both internal dysfunction and external disruption.
Business Consequence: Increased turnover costs; it loses critical thinking, weakened memory and future leadership capacity.
4. Cultural Contamination and Normalisation of Dysfunction
Culture is shaped far less by what organisations espouse than by what they consistently tolerate. Values statements may articulate integrity, accountability, and respect, but it is the everyday pattern of behaviour, especially that which goes unchallenged, that ultimately defines the lived reality. When toxic individuals operate without consequence, they do more than disrupt; they recalibrate the norm. Manipulation is reframed as strategic acumen, silence is interpreted as loyalty, and fear becomes an embedded feature of the system rather than an aberration.
In such environments, behavioural drift sets in. Employees adjust not to formal expectations, but to informal signals about what is safe, rewarded, or ignored. Ethical boundaries blur incrementally, and practices that would once have been contested become routine. Over time, this produces a form of cultural conditioning in which individuals no longer question dysfunction, they adapt to it.
This pattern is well documented in emerging research on organisational silence and toxic climates. Knoll et al. (2021) show how silence becomes institutionalised when employees perceive that speaking up carries personal risk without meaningful impact. Similarly, Pfrombeck et al. (2020) highlight how repeated exposure to dysfunctional leadership behaviours normalises deviance, embedding it into everyday organisational practice. What begins as isolated misconduct evolves into a shared, if unspoken, understanding of “how things are done here.”
The long-term consequence is cultural inversion. Instead of the organisation shaping behaviour through principled standards, behaviour reshapes the culture through repeated compromise. Dysfunction becomes self-reinforcing: new entrants assimilate into the prevailing norms, while those who resist are marginalised or exit. Over time, the organisation internalises this dysfunction as standard operating practice, making transformation not just a matter of policy change, but of deep cultural reconditioning.
Business consequence: Declining engagement, reduced trust, internal fragmentation, and weakened organisational cohesion.
5. Reputational Degradation and External Risk
The internal dynamics of toxic power rarely remain contained within organisational boundaries. What begins as distorted relationships, suppressed dissent, and compromised decision-making inevitably spills outward, often manifesting in ethical lapses, inconsistent stakeholder engagement, and systemic governance failures. The same patterns that undermine internal integrity, such as information control, narrative manipulation, and the prioritisation of power over principle, begin to shape how the organisation interacts with regulators, partners, investors, and the public.
Externally, this often presents as opacity in communication, selective disclosure, and erratic decision-making. Commitments are inconsistently honoured, stakeholder concerns are managed rather than addressed, and governance structures become performative rather than substantive. Over time, credibility erodes, not necessarily through a single catastrophic failure, but through the cumulative effect of misalignment between what the organisation claims and how it behaves.
Contemporary corporate governance research underscores this connection. Lange et al. (2022) demonstrate that leadership cultures characterised by dominance, fear, and low accountability are significantly associated with heightened regulatory and compliance risk. Similarly, Wang et al. (2023) link toxic leadership environments to increased likelihood of legal exposure, financial misreporting, and reputational damage, particularly where oversight mechanisms are weakened or co-opted.
Critically, stakeholders may not immediately identify toxic power as the root cause, but they experience its consequences in tangible ways: delayed or incomplete disclosures, shifting strategic positions, diminished transparency, and a growing lack of trust. Investors begin to price in uncertainty, regulators intensify scrutiny, and partners reassess alignment. What was once an internal cultural issue becomes an external liability.
The ultimate risk is systemic. As governance deteriorates and trust declines, the organisation’s licence to operate, both formal and informal, comes under threat. In this sense, toxic power is not merely a cultural dysfunction; it is a strategic risk multiplier, amplifying exposure across legal, financial, and reputational domains while steadily eroding the foundations of organisational legitimacy.
Business consequence: Loss of client confidence, regulatory scrutiny, reputational damage, and constrained growth.
6. Financial Leakage and Hidden Costs
Perhaps the most underestimated impact of toxic power is financial. While toxic individuals may appear to deliver results, often through intensity, control, or short-term target achievement, the underlying economics tell a different story. Beneath the surface, hidden costs accumulate: legal disputes, grievance processes, elevated turnover, recruitment and onboarding expenses, duplicated effort caused by poor coordination, and the quiet but significant cost of missed opportunities. These are rarely captured in a single line item, yet collectively they exert a persistent drag on organisational performance.
In toxic environments, resources are systematically misallocated. Time and attention, arguably the scarcest executive assets, are diverted from strategy, innovation, and growth toward conflict management, narrative control, and reputational repair. Decision cycles slow as information is contested or withheld, execution falters due to low trust and misalignment, and risk exposure increases as governance disciplines weaken. What may appear as decisiveness at the top often translates into inefficiency and friction throughout the system.
Emerging research in strategic management reinforces this reality. Alex Edmans (2020) demonstrates that organisations with strong, healthy cultures significantly outperform their peers over the long term, while those with dysfunctional cultures experience erosion in sustained value creation, even when short-term metrics appear favourable. Similarly, Donald Sull et al. (2022) show that toxic workplace cultures are among the strongest predictors of employee attrition and are directly associated with declines in long-term firm performance, particularly where issues such as disrespect, unethical behaviour, and lack of inclusivity persist.
The financial impact, therefore, is both direct and compounding. Direct costs arise from turnover, litigation, and operational inefficiencies; indirect costs manifest through diminished innovation, slower response to market shifts, and weakened customer and stakeholder relationships. Over time, the organisation becomes less competitive, not because it lacks capability, but because its internal dynamics erode the conditions required for that capability to translate into value.
In this sense, toxic power operates as a form of structural inefficiency, an invisible tax on performance. It quietly absorbs resources, distorts priorities, and redirects leadership focus away from value creation toward ongoing damage control. Left unaddressed, it does not merely reduce profitability; it undermines the organisation’s capacity to sustain performance at all.
Business consequence: Reduced profitability, inefficiency, and sustained underperformance.
The true carnage of toxic power lies in its compounding and self-reinforcing nature. Office politics accelerates decision distortion; distorted decisions drive the exit of high-calibre talent; talent loss deepens cultural dysfunction; cultural dysfunction heightens reputational and governance risk; and all of these forces ultimately converge in financial decline. What is initially dismissed as a “people issue” metastasises into systemic organisational failure.
At the centre of this cycle, narcissistic leadership often acts as an accelerant. Narcissistic actors are typically characterised by an inflated sense of self-importance, a heightened need for admiration, and a diminished capacity for empathy. In positions of power, these traits translate into a preference for control over collaboration, validation over truth, and personal image over institutional integrity. Decision-making becomes increasingly centralised, dissent is experienced as disloyalty, and information is curated to reinforce the leader’s self-concept.
This dynamic intensifies each stage of the compounding cycle. In politically charged environments, narcissistic leaders reward loyalty and flattery, thereby strengthening inner circles and further marginalising independent voices. Decision distortion deepens as contradictory data is filtered out or ignored. As talented individuals encounter environments where merit is subordinate to ego, they disengage or exit, accelerating the depletion of organisational capability.
Culturally, narcissism normalises performative behaviour. Visibility replaces substance, impression management displaces execution, and employees learn to navigate the leader’s preferences rather than organisational priorities. Over time, this erodes authenticity and trust, embedding a climate of caution and compliance. The organisation becomes less a system of coordinated value creation and more an arena for reinforcing the identity and authority of the dominant actor.
The external consequences are equally severe. Narcissistic leadership often correlates with overconfidence in strategic decisions, underestimation of risk, and resistance to governance oversight. This increases the likelihood of ethical lapses, regulatory breaches, and reputational damage. Stakeholders experience inconsistency, opacity, and a growing disconnect between stated values and actual conduct.
Ultimately, the financial implications are unavoidable. Resources are diverted to sustain image and control, while the organisation’s adaptive capacity steadily declines. Innovation slows, execution weakens, and competitive positioning deteriorates. The compounding effect reaches a tipping point where recovery becomes difficult without significant structural and leadership change.
In this way, narcissism does not merely coexist with toxic power, it amplifies and accelerates its destructive trajectory. The result is an organisation caught in a downward spiral, where each dysfunction reinforces the next, and where the cost is borne not only in culture and capability, but in long-term viability itself.
Critically, this damage is not inevitable, it is enabled. It persists where institutions prioritise short-term gains over long-term integrity, where governance is passive, and where the cost of confrontation is perceived to outweigh the cost of inaction. Contemporary research increasingly frames toxic leadership as a system-enabled phenomenon, not merely an individual pathology (Mackey et al. 2021).
By the time decisive action is taken, the challenge is no longer managing an individual, but rebuilding what has been quietly undone.
Managing the Unmanageable
If toxic power were simply a matter of personality, it could be resolved through coaching, mediation, or disciplinary action. The reality is more complex. By the time an individual is widely perceived as “unmanageable,” they are rarely operating alone. Instead, they are sustained by networks, protected by performance narratives, and embedded within organisational blind spots. Contemporary research in Organisational Behaviour shows that toxic leadership is often system-enabled, reinforced by culture, governance gaps, and incentive structures (Mackey et al. 2021; Sull et al. 2022).
Managing the unmanageable therefore requires a shift in posture: from accommodation to deliberate control of the environment in which power operates.
1. Name the Pattern, Not Just the Person
Organisations often fail because they personalise the issue, reducing it to interpersonal conflict. This diffuses accountability. Effective intervention begins by identifying behavioural patterns and their systemic impact.
Recent research on workplace misconduct and behavioural patterns shows that organisations respond more effectively when issues are framed as recurring systemic risks rather than isolated incidents (Kaptein 2022; Treviño et al. 2021).
Implication: Pattern recognition transforms subjective complaints into objective organisational risk.
2. Use Exposure as a Strategic Lever
Toxic power thrives in opacity. It depends on selective information and controlled narratives. Exposure, through structured transparency, is therefore a critical intervention.
This aligns with research on transparency and accountability systems, which demonstrates that visibility mechanisms such as audits, 360-degree feedback, and formal reporting reduce the persistence of unethical or abusive leadership behaviours (Schnackenberg & Tomlinson 2020; Brown & Treviño 2020).
Implication: Exposure shifts power from the individual to the institution by making behaviour collectively observable.
3. Collapse Informal Power Structures
Toxic individuals derive strength from informal networks and control over information. These must be dismantled through structural redesign, redistributing decision rights and increasing transparency.
Studies in Social Network Theory show that reducing network centrality and increasing connectivity weakens disproportionate influence (Balkundi et al. 2020; Brass et al. 2021).
Implication: Power becomes diffused when systems, not individuals, control access and flow.
4. Re-anchor Authority in Systems, Not Personalities
Where institutions depend on individuals, toxic power thrives. The antidote is disciplined governance with clear roles, enforceable standards, and independent oversight.
Recent governance research emphasises that strong institutional controls and independent oversight bodies significantly reduce the impact of dominant individuals (Aguilera et al. 2021; Ioannou & Serafeim 2022).
Implication: Authority must be structural, not personal.
5. Protect and Amplify Dissenting Voices
A defining feature of toxic environments is suppressed dissent. Reversing this requires deliberate protection mechanisms and cultural reframing of dissent as constructive.
Research on Psychological Safety shows that environments where employees feel safe to speak up are significantly more resilient to toxic leadership (Newman et al. 2020; Edmondson & Lei 2021).
Implication: Voice is not a cultural luxury. It is a governance necessity.
6. Disrupt the Performance Shield
Toxic individuals often remain protected because they deliver results. This creates a false trade-off between performance and behaviour.
Recent studies show that toxic high performers create long-term organisational damage that outweighs short-term gains (O’Reilly & Chatman 2020; Sull et al. 2022). Performance that erodes culture and governance constitutes hidden liability rather than value creation.
Implication: Performance must be evaluated holistically, both outcomes and method.
7. Act Decisively—But Not Reactively
Delayed action compounds damage, but impulsive action can destabilise systems. Effective response is deliberate, grounded in evidence, aligned stakeholders, and reinforced governance.
Research on crisis leadership and organisational response shows that sequenced, evidence-based interventions are more effective than reactive decision-making (Bundy et al. 2021).
Implication: Credibility of action matters more than speed alone.
8. Rebuild After Removal or Containment
Removing a toxic individual does not restore organisational health automatically. Residual effects, such as fear, mistrust, learned behaviours persist.
Recent work on post-toxic recovery and organisational healing highlights the importance of trust rebuilding, cultural reset, and leadership signalling in restoring institutional integrity (Kish-Gephart et al. 2022; Walker & Jackson 2023).
Implication: Recovery must be intentional; otherwise dysfunction re-emerges.
Managing the unmanageable is ultimately a test of leadership courage and institutional maturity. It requires confronting uncomfortable truths: that toxicity was tolerated, that systems were insufficient, and that performance was sometimes prioritised over principle.
Exposure plays a pivotal role in this process. What remains hidden retains power; what is made visible can be governed. Research consistently shows that transparency, voice, and accountability systems are the most effective long-term antidotes to toxic power (Schnackenberg & Tomlinson 2020; Morrison 2023).
The goal is not merely to remove a problematic individual, but to create conditions where such power cannot take root again. Where governance is clear, culture is resilient, and accountability is enforced, toxic power cannot sustain itself, not because individuals cease to exist, but because the system no longer enables them.
Conclusion
The enduring myth within many institutions is that certain individuals, however difficult, are simply too valuable to lose. Their results appear to justify their methods; their influence seems too embedded to challenge. Yet the evidence, both observable and cumulative, points in the opposite direction. No organisation is strengthened by the sustained presence of toxic power. What may look like indispensability is often a carefully constructed illusion, sustained by fear, dependency, and short-term performance gains.
When toxic personalities are allowed to operate unchecked, the organisation does not merely accommodate them, it is gradually reshaped by them. Standards are lowered, accountability is diluted, and culture is recalibrated around survival rather than excellence. Over time, the business begins to pay a hidden tax: in lost talent, compromised decisions, reputational fragility, and diminished strategic clarity. These costs rarely appear immediately on financial statements, but they are no less real in eroding long-term value.
Conversely, organisations that confront and remove toxic dynamics, however disruptive in the short term, consistently position themselves for stronger, more sustainable performance. Clarity returns to decision-making. Trust begins to rebuild. Talent re-engages. Systems regain integrity. What was once consumed by internal friction is redirected toward innovation, execution, and growth.
The absence of toxicity is not merely a cultural ideal; it is a strategic advantage. It enables alignment, accelerates collaboration, and restores confidence both internally and externally. Most importantly, it re-establishes a fundamental principle: that power within the institution is exercised in service of its purpose, not in pursuit of personal dominance.
The real question, therefore, is not whether an organisation can afford to lose a toxic individual. It is whether it can afford to keep them.
In the final analysis, businesses are not weakened by the removal of toxic personalities. They are liberated by it.
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