Paper Title
Leaders Behaving Badly: Constructing a Toxic Leadership for Public University Leaders

Abstract
The aim of this research is to explore concepts of toxic leadership in public universities in Malaysia. It will explore the effects of a toxic leadership on academicians, characteristics of a toxic leader and culture that may encourage toxic leadership. A sample size for this research is 17 participants for interview and 150 respondents for questionnaire were selected among Senior Lecturers and Associate Professors. The results showed that toxicity leader in university can cause emotional disturbance, reduce their performance and create employee anti-social behavior. While they believed that culture such as permissive environment and hierarchal structure encourage a toxic development and have a greatest influence on toxicity determination in university. These findings will give an overall picture how to identify the existence of toxic leadership and its affect in higher education in Malaysia. Finally, this research will contribute to the literature on leadership and extend the literature about the effect of toxic leadership in higher education institutions. Index terms- Higher education institutions, leadership, toxic leadership, public universities, organizational culture, middle manager, Malaysia.