Marc Haine and a researcher distinguish toxic bosses from merely difficult ones. After the pandemic, toxic leadership has noticeably increased among their clients, marked by patterns of narcissism and excessive control that go beyond typical workplace friction.
How do we define a toxic boss and how does it differ from merely the difficult bosses?
That's a great question. So, earlier definitions really looked at a whole series of really negative behaviors like being narcissistic, like being controlling, overly controlling. And what I did is I did a research project recently to update the definition and to really look at what's going on post-pandemic with toxic leadership. Because I had been seeing a rise in it in our clientele who were suffering and struggling from it. And anecdotally, from across hundreds of clients, you start to see a pattern of, hey, this thing is a real issue out there. It's not getting better.
