Toxic leadership in higher education: a typology of behaviours

The objective of this study was to create a psychometrically valid and reliable toxic leadership scale (TLS) for use in higher education workplace environments. The TLS was administered to a sample of 482 faculty members employed by three public universities in Jordan. Another aim of the study was to determine the level of toxic leadership based on the perceptions of faculty members. In addition, the current study sought to ascertain how perceptions of toxic leadership varied according to differences in gender, level of education, experience, and academic rank. The findings of the study revealed that the TLS is composed of 15 items spread over three factors named managerial harassment, falsified show, and dictatorship. Results also indicated the presence of toxic leadership in public higher education with a low degree for the managerial harassment factor. However, moderate degrees of toxic leadership were found for the falsified show and dictatorship factors. Regarding the demographics of faculty members, the findings showed that lower academic ranks and less experienced faculty members had lower views of toxic leadership, while men had greater perceptions of toxic leadership. The study provided numerous recommendations for theory development and practitioners in higher education.