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.