o:29392 Defeating the Toxic Boss The Nature of Toxic Leadership and the Role of Followers en ABSTRACT Drawing on the findings from a multiple-case study, we build a process model of toxic leadership and empirically illustrate the toxic leadership process and its outcomes. In doing so, we make two important contributions to current literature. First, we provide a theoretical model of the toxic leadership process that details the intent and outcomes of toxic leadership relative to other dark leadership styles: destructive, abusive, and ineffective. In doing so, we show that, although the intent of toxic leaders is relatively less harmful; the behaviors these leaders engage may be harmful for the organization. More specifically, we show that the primary intent of toxic leaders is to conceal lack of relevant competence and maintain a position of control, at the exclusion of other organizationally relevant objectives. To achieve their intent, toxic leaders engage in upward and downward directed influence attempts that create ambiguity and confusion, thus increasing the toxicity of the context and interfering with others’ ability to perform their work. Second, our findings suggest that followers are more agentic than previously suggested. We show that followers do not only choose to unfollow their leaders, but also actively work to neutralize the influence of toxic leaders through workarounds and learning. Followers have largely been neglected by the extant leadership literature, and thus the agency they often display in leadership processes has been insufficiently examined Keywords: Dark leadership; Followership; Multiple-case study; Toxic leadership; Toxic processes 1552099 10.1177/154805181983337 1552101 1548-0518 2023-05-12T11:43:29.430Z 44 no 46 Ivana Milošević Stefan Marić person Dragan Lončar Univerzitet u Beogradu Ekonomski fakultet person 12931431 0000-0002-7883-6567 application/pdf 934617 https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:29392 no yes 1 70 92000001 11A03 Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 27 2 117 137 2020