The Impact of Perceived Toxic Leadership on Cynicism in Officer Candidates

Organizational cynicism is a key factor in employee burnout, emotional exhaustion, and turnover and directly reduces organizational citizenship behavior, commitment, and effectiveness. Still, little empirical research examines antecedents of organizational cynicism. This study applies a dark side of leadership framework from an organizational and leadership perspective to examine the relationship between perceived toxic leadership and organizational cynicism in a military educational environment. Survey and interview data were used to assess the relationship between toxic leadership and organizational cynicism as reported by U.S. Air Force Academy cadets. Results demonstrate a positive relationship between toxic leadership and organizational cynicism, such that those who report having leaders with toxic characteristics are likely to have more negative attitudes toward their organization. Self-promotion emerged as the sole significant toxic leadership dimension predicting cynicism. Group differences in perceived toxic leadership are found for race but not for gender or amount of time within the organization.