A manager who humiliates, manipulates or unpredictably changes expectations can make work feel deeply destabilising. But the damage is rarely limited to one difficult relationship. When colleagues stay silent and organisations soften what they know, harmful leadership can become a wider workplace system.
That pattern is illustrated by the experience of Andrea, a pseudonym for a senior legal executive. She resigned after reporting to a powerful new colleague whose expectations shifted without warning, whose feedback contradicted itself, and who spoke over her publicly while undermining her privately.
Her colleagues later told her they had seen what was happening but had said nothing. One described her as an “emotional stab vest” who had protected them. Some reportedly cried when they learned the executive was returning to the organisation. A senior executive told Andrea: “People work longer at McDonald’s than they work for him.”
Why harmful leaders can be difficult to identify
The fact sheet behind this article argues that destructive leaders may initially appear charming, confident and aligned with employees’ values. In an interview, a healthy leader and a dangerous one may look surprisingly similar.
Corporate language can also disguise warning signs. Low empathy may be described as decisiveness, ruthlessness as high standards, emotional detachment as resilience and manipulation as influence. Environments that reward certainty, relentless drive and control can further strengthen those behaviours.
A 2015 meta-analysis led by psychologist Emily Grijalva found that narcissism meaningfully predicted leadership emergence—who obtained the job—but had almost no relationship with leadership effectiveness. The fact sheet also says people high in narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy can be disproportionately skilled at managing impressions.
These findings do not mean that every confident or ambitious manager is harmful, nor that a diagnosis can be made from workplace behaviour. They point instead to a problem with selection systems that may reward how someone presents more than how they treat people over time.
Power can turn an individual pattern into a culture
Some destructive managers alternate withdrawal with restored warmth. That cycle can keep employees hopeful and vigilant, making it harder to leave after they have accepted a job or taken on major financial commitments.
The fact sheet cites research in The Leadership Quarterly linking supervisors’ childhood experiences of family undermining with abusive supervisory behaviour in adulthood, particularly among people with lower self-control. It describes this as an association, not proof of direct causation. Trauma itself does not create a toxic leader or disqualify anyone from leadership; the distinction is between trauma and trauma that has not been processed.
Manfred FR Kets de Vries, interviewed in 2025, described power and narcissism as a dangerous combination: “When people get into a situation of power, unfortunately, narcissism is a very heavy drug and many people cannot handle it.”
Why organisations may fail to intervene
Companies can build what the source calls an “architecture of accommodation”: colleagues privately disapprove, boards soften their language, investors focus on results and employees protect their income. In that environment, behaviour that would be unacceptable elsewhere may be labelled a leadership style, a personality clash or an HR issue.
Examples cited in the fact sheet include the CBI’s collapse under misconduct allegations, a Ted Baker staff petition about its founder’s culture of “forced hugging”, and Harvey Weinstein. In each case, the source says, concerns about misconduct were reportedly known widely before decisive action followed.
There is also a gap between formal systems. Businesses often use detailed governance for financial integrity, while treating senior leaders’ conduct as subjective. Research conducted across the media industry in 2022 found that HR ranked as the least respected function among senior executives, according to the fact sheet.
Yet many employees do report wrongdoing. The Ethics & Compliance Initiative reports that about three-quarters of employees who witness wrongdoing report it internally or externally. The challenge is whether organisations listen, protect those who speak up and act when the person involved has authority.
The cost extends beyond one resignation
Destructive management can make employees doubt their competence and judgment. It can also affect retention. MIT Sloan researchers analysed 34 million employee profiles and found that toxic culture was 10 times more powerful than pay in predicting who quit.
Workplace stress is a broader health concern. Britain’s Health and Safety Executive identifies the way managers manage staff as a major cause of work-related stress. Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford has concluded in research on workplace mortality that harmful management practices are “literally killing people”. These claims underline why management behaviour should not be treated as a minor matter of style.
What accountability requires
The central question is not only why one manager behaves destructively. It is why the organisation continues to grant that person authority after the pattern becomes visible.
That requires companies to examine promotion decisions, listen to repeated accounts from staff, distinguish performance from intimidation and ensure that complaints do not disappear into informal conversations. Boards and senior leaders also need to consider whether strong results are being achieved by shifting the cost onto employees.
For workers, recognising that a harmful environment may be systemic can help explain why individual attempts to cope do not always change it. The fact sheet states that workplace bullying is not a stand-alone criminal offence in Britain, which means organisational processes and employment protections can be especially important. It also says the Employment Rights Act 2025 will go further when its provisions on non-disclosure agreements take effect; those provisions are described as future provisions.
A manager’s personality can influence a workplace, but authority determines how far that influence travels. When personality combines with unchecked power, an individual’s behaviour can become culture, strategy and everyday working conditions.
AI tools were used to assist with the preparation of this article.
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