Examination of Toxic Leadership and Impact on Police Personnel
Abstract
The research aims to find out if toxic leadership has any impact on the police personnel of the United States.
The research follows a quantitative research strategy for collecting data from the respondents and analyses them for finding the proper research result. The research has been conducted by preparing a questionnaire and distributed it among the respondents who are the employees of the police department. The research follows a random sampling method where 50 selected randomly for collecting primary data first hand. The research has used various tables and graphs for representing the collected data from the primary respondents.
The research concludes leadership style plays a great role in employee motivation inspiration. The research has indicated that the current environment of the police department is highly impacted by toxic leadership and a majority of the respondents experienced it and seen people leaving the job due to this. The research also points out that using a positive leadership style job stress can be significantly reduced which is likely to increase the level of job performance.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION:
1.1 Background:
Toxic leadership reflects the dark side of leadership. Misuses of power practices in various sectors like politics, religions, and corporate often show destructive behavior. These kinds of behavior have the ability to inflict harm and cause serious damage to others. This dysfunctional characteristic of toxic leadership is unethical and malicious. There can be various types of nature, processes, and reasons for behind toxic leadership. Again there can be some serious consequences of toxic leadership. For knowing various impacts, the behavioral symptoms of toxic leadership have to be drawn. Again there are various contemporary myths and proper awareness of toxic leadership is needed for knowing the impact of it on various organizational contexts (Bass, 2016).
Toxic leadership is one sort of destructive leadership of a manager, leaders or superior that violates the interest of an organization or group of people. Gallos (2012) states that toxic leadership undermines the goals, effectiveness, and resources of the respective organization and causes various harms to the individuals. The subordinates are mostly affected by this kind of leadership. This kind of leadership can show a wide range of behavior necessarily not limited to one. It can show various acts of physical forces, inappropriate physical contact, sexual harassments, inappropriate behavior or acts against the legal interest of an organization, showing repetitive destructive behavior, outburst of anger, abusing subordinates, spontaneous misconducts, etc. a top person within an organization can adopt multiple toxic leadership styles and show the manifestation of toxic behavior. Here a person can dominate a group of people and influence them from doing wrong deeds against the interest of a person or mass people. Here following various toxic leadership styles a person can manipulate and coerces a group of people or a person to do the wrongdoings. In modern organization and various other sectors, toxic leadership cannot be accepted and tolerated as the impacts and consequences of this kind of behavior can be far-reaching (Riggio, 2016).
The ambitious people of top authorities in the twenty-first century can be traced back following various dark leadership styles. Bass (2016) says that in various sectors of corporate, politics, religions and other aspects, various horrendous scams can be noticed which shows the malicious dark side of leadership and power practice. In various sectors of organization and societies, the toxicity of dark leadership runs and sometimes the incompetence and failure of the leaders and malicious intention of the leaders cause the people to suffer a lot. Again the working environment can be toxic. People work in a stressful situation in lots of worries and anxieties and most of the time they blame the situation. It can be a product of the personality and styles of the toxic leaders who make the situation worse to work us in and intentionally contaminate the environment. The venomous thoughts of the toxic leaders turn the job environment into a worse off situation and hereby maximum employees have to endure toxic leaders and tolerate the intentional misdemeanor of the villainous leaders and top authorities. The example of such toxic leaders and their venomous acts is very prevalent in the corporate world. One recent research claims that everyone f five leaders in the corporate world are found to be psychopaths. The deadly situation sometimes becomes worse following the course of time and affects the subordinates in multiple ways impacting negatively their self-esteem, motivation, moral values, and behavioral patterns as well. employees and various other people often don’t have any idea about the leadership styles of the leaders, managers and the top authorities and hereby they out of any idea gets trapped in some worse situations be engaged in various corporate and political scams or worse. Hereby most of the people suffer directly or indirectly. The media of present days represent various true stories of the corporate world which is full of scams and scandals. These incidents reflect the horrendous dark leadership of the top personnel of various fields of politics, religions, and others (Gallos, 2012).
1.2 Aspects of toxic leadership:
There can be various aspects related to toxic leadership. Sometimes the leaders are genuinely toxic and sometimes the failure of their management style and incompetency or poor managerial skills can show the characteristics of dark leadership. Sometimes the metal disorders of leaders, managers, and top authorities reflect the dark styles of leadership. According to Northouse (2010) following this kind of aversive leadership styles of less powerful becomes the victims of the most power-holders who humiliates and causes misery of the subordinates. Through interpersonal exchange with the wicked leaders, the employees or the subordinates feel de-moralized and de-energized. The deliberate wickedly harmful intention is masked by the strong personality of the leaders and the top authorities. Hereby the sort term malicious intention of the leaders can have long term horrible impacts over the subordinate person or a group of persons. Sometimes full society can be affected by the ill intention of the leaders. Maximum times there are various transitional effects on the followers where its evaluation is important for knowing the process. For knowing the leaders influences the proper evaluation of the consequences of the subordinates or the less powerful people has to be done so that the characteristics patterns and ill thoughts of the leaders can be identified. Often various mismanagement and un-well mental health conditions associated with toxic leadership styles. The USA Police Department is often noticed with the various impaired mental health condition of various police personnel. Again many claims that there is some casual mismanagement within the department which Impact the police persons and their actions. The unhealthy mental conditions of the police personnel often affect others and cause various problems within the department. There can be psychopathic intention among the police which can bring about inevitable negative impacts over the others. Sometimes the USA police face an intolerable working environment following some unavoidable issues (Northouse, 2010).
1.3 Construct of toxic behavior:
The construct of toxic leadership is a multidimensional one which bears erratic behavior following abusive methods intentionally harms self-esteem of the subordinates, erodes their motivation brings about eventual failure of the system in alignment with counterproductive performance actions. The derisive supervision mixed with authoritative actions bears long term losses of the respective organization where the self-promoting leaders play the role of a super villain for bringing unprecedented malfunction of various layers of the society and cause catastrophe intentionally (Kouzes, 2013).
Overlaps of bad qualities among the persons following toxic leadership can represent mastermind villainous behavior of a criminal genius. Hereby one may seem extremely helpful person beautifully disguising all his ill intentions along with monstrous and outrageous agendas capable of causing vicious atrocities. Posner (2013) says that tracing back of the reasons for the very stressful working environment can be conducted following the proper comprehension of the characteristic traits of the toxic leaders and their leadership style along with their performance actions. Hereby the shocking work environment reflects the aggressive ill intention of the toxic leaders. Sometimes the policies in the USA police department experience the traumatic working ambiance and blame various aspects of the department.
Northouse (2010) states that the toxic leaders tend to be aggressive and hereby they follow their personal interest above the interest of the organization and henceforth they try to bring intentional harms to their followers and in the actions of the organization. They show aggression to their subordinates, blame them and intimidate them in a variety of ways. Long term harms can be caused by the leaders with toxic elements bringing about the ethical failure of others associated. The USA police department has to go through an extremely tough situation and undergo various risk factors. Recently within the USA police department, the policies have faced some problems. They had faced difficulties in various sectors of actions and performance. Again some of the police personnel prove to have a poor mental health condition. Some claims that there are poor leadership styles and some say that there is managerial condition sometimes fails the department. Again there are claims that there is evidence of toxic leadership within the department. Some of the claims say that the incompetence of the leaders causes various troubles within the department.
1.4 Rational of the research:
Here the present research project will try to investigate the issues of toxic leadership in the context of the USA police department. The current research will try to focus if there is any negative impact of the leadership of the leaders of the USA police department. There can be multiple impacts of toxic leadership within the organizational context. Toxic leadership can have a wide range of negative impact on organizational performance and its employees. The current research work is important as it will try to investigate various aspects and factors of toxic leadership and how it bears an impact on various organizational levels. Motivation and moral values can be affected due to the toxic leadership style. Hereby through proper research activities, various aspects of toxic leadership style can be identified. Various characteristic patterns and behavioral aspects of toxic leadership can be known through effective research activities. Hereby the researchers go through various research conduction for knowing various factors and variables related to toxic leadership. Following this type of research activity, the researcher can effectively know transitions of toxic leadership styles and identify how it influences the emotional intelligence and various skill developments of the employees. The various organizations can go through strategic changes after identifying the toxic leadership style and go for the development process (Ernest, 2015).
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW:
2.1 Leadership style:
Leaders are the persons who lead a group of people or an organization. The most crucial role of a leader is to formulate various appropriate tactics and strategies for achieving various organizational goals and objectives. Hereby a leader has to adopt the appropriate leadership style for dealing with various organizational performance activities. A leader has to adopt the most appropriate leadership style for running various operational activities of his respective organization. The success rate and productivity of an organization depend highly on the leadership style a leader goes through. For conducting various organizational performances a leadership style is the most important one and hereby these performance activities and organizational efficiency depends largely on the leadership style of the leaders, managers and higher authorities.
The modern environment of various organizational performances is greatly shaped by the influence of globalization and modern information technology. Hereby the present organizations have to go through some of the rapid changes for being up to date with the new trends and perform advanced organizational activities. One of the major tools of various organizations for sustaining in the present days of intense competition is proper leadership style. An appropriate leadership style helps an organization to formulate a proper market plan after understanding the present market and implement than for the best possible outcomes. It is one of the crucial roles of the marketers to choose the perfect leadership styles for implementing within the organization. Hereby there can be various types of leadership styles which can be implemented. The every market place is different and different organization have different values, purpose, and objectives following the aptitudes of the employees and workforce where different motivation and qualities are needed for making the industries run in a variety of ways following the basic industry standards. Hereby the leaders, managers and top authorities are required to choose the perfect leadership styles for apprehending the employees and the working environment for making alignment of the performance activities following the employee standards so that coming up with the modern trends can be possible along with some of the strategic decision that are considered crucial for the organizational performance (Jean, 2015).
Following the modern trends of globalization and technological advancement, a major transformation is taking place in every sphere of life where perfect decision-making process is required for implementing the right strategic approaches following the components of a theoretical framework for ensuring the proper transition for the very success achievement. Hereby there can be various types of leadership theories such as transactional theories and transformational theories. The transformational leadership style is a straight forward one which focuses on the performance of the employees and hereby the employees can be either rewarded or punished depending on their performance. This leadership style can be followed where job environment follows a certain structure and less motivation of the employees are needed and hereby the hierarchical strategies of the organization reflect the basic code of the organization. The theory of transactional leadership helps the organizations follow a dynamic leadership theory which focuses on motivation, effective team strategy, employee inspiration, and employee advancement which help the organization to concentrate on the next level of organizational development and focus for achieving a higher level of development and progress. Even for achieving the short term goals the leaders focus on motivating the employee properly so that the skills, abilities of the employees can be increased for increasing the overall organizational performance efficiency (Hankiss, 2014).
Again there can be various types of leadership styles such as democratic leadership style, autocratic leadership style, and laissez-faire leadership style. Hereby the democratic leadership style enables an organization to make everyone take part in the decision-making process so that sharing of thoughts and ideas can be made possible from every sphere of the organization. Following this participative leadership style, an organization can effectively increase the motivation of the employee making them develop a feeling of belongingness which makes them feel valued as well along with bringing proper job satisfaction. Thus an organization can effectively increase the loyalty of the employees and boost the productivity of decreasing the employee turnover rates. Again involving everyone in the decision-making process can make the organization face unwanted chaos and confusion and hereby the organizations need to ensure the proper level of communication process so to avoiding misconception (Lipman, 2015).
Again, on the other hand, the autocratic leadership style is the opposite of the democratic leadership style. Hereby the employees are not welcomed in participating in the decision-making process. This leadership style may not bring expected job satisfaction of the employees where they may lack proper motivation and loyalty. Again highly capable leaders with his leading capabilities and leadership skills can effectively lead an organization towards certain goals and organizational objectives. With a profoundly qualified workforce and highly capable leaders, a business organization can effectively bring about desired success following a properly designed working procedure. Hereby dissatisfaction may arise among the employee but the achievement of organizational targets can be achieved effectively following the limited organizational resources utilizing them properly within a short range of time period. Again in some of the cases, this leadership seems ineffective for maintaining continuous development process as diverse operational ideas can hardly be produced from one side of authority where the employees grow the tendency of disloyalty which eventually decreases the employee retention rate (Elemér, 2014).
Again the laissez-faire leadership style is an advanced one and can be effectively implemented where the employees are highly motivated and outstandingly skilled. For example for managing a group of scientists, this leadership can be effective. Some of the researchers say that this style is not a leadership style but merely a management style which can be applied for managing some highly skilled, positively motivated and proficiently functional people. In such a group there can be some highly functional individual who may be willing to do their own tasks following respective procedure and thus there is a huge chance of chaos and mismanagement. Various complicated and innovative projects can be managed following this type of leadership style (Jean, 2016).
An organization following its objectives aims and working procedures follow a certain leadership style. The perfect leadership style can bring about various positive changes within the organization. The most important thing in an organization is the motivation of the workforce and hereby the leaders have to choose the most effective leadership style for ensuring the proper motivation of the employee and working persons. With the help of most advanced and appropriate leadership style, a leader can influence the workforce and make them stay focused in the organizational context. Following a proper level of leadership style, the management of an organization can effectively render the most advanced and effective managerial actions and increase performance activity. The proper level of leadership style can help the managers, leaders or the top authorities formulate various development plans and implement them in the organizational context so that the overall performance efficiency of the employees and the whole organization can be increased. Proper leadership style is helpful for the managers to evaluate the important function of the management and identify the sectors of development (Blumen, 2015).
2.2 Toxic leadership and its impact:
Toxic leadership demonstrates aggression towards the subordinates and employees and makes them experience the traumatic work experience to make them suffer intentionally. Toxic leaders follow a different path for inflicting short term and long term loss and harm to the employees and other people. Following the ominous characteristics endures serious harms to organization, society and other peoples including public sectors. Hereby multidimensional framework is needed for comprehending the complexity and level of toxicity of dark leadership and its various other sectors. Again in some case, toxic leaders can be vexing to one but a savior for others. Elemér (2014) states that following the multidimensional framework significance of severe consequences of decisions and actions of the toxic leaders, their incompetency, destructive personal traits, toxic behavior, and personal qualities can be measured and take adequate actions for minimizing the negative effects. The reckless actions and intentional dysfunctional mechanism can bring about unbearable circumstances on a personal level and cause huge loss to the collective life of the society. A toxic leader can behave harshly in some and on the others very benignly and show biases in interest following his own interest as well. From place to place the negative consequences of toxic leadership can vary as there is a difference in the decisions and actions of the toxic leaders which makes their nature hard to comprehend sometimes (Jean, 2016).
Without realizing a toxic leader can bring down a whole organization and inflict a greater amount of loss to a huge number of people. Hereby an entire organizational culture can come to a standstill and create menace for making polluting the overall environment. Sometimes the toxic leaders play the role of a silent killer and sabotage groups and organizations bring down even a whole nation. Sometimes various national and political catastrophes can be caused by toxic leadership styles. Again the toxic leadership can be appealing to the mass people and attract and misguide the youth. Jean (2015) says that toxic leadership holds a strong emotion of power and eventually can manage to misguide the fools and uneducated people to follow to darkness and destruction. A toxic leader can be highly treacherous and directly distress the people all around him. A well-defined image and construct of toxic leadership are needed for identifying and controlling such toxic leadership. Thus proper construct of the dark side of toxic leadership and its menacing and catastrophic influences have to be known for being conscious about such leadership. Proper knowledge about toxic leadership will help the individual and group of person design, develop, and implement various strategic ways, methods, and mechanisms for tackling, controlling and eliminating the toxic leadership (Abraham, 2013).
Initially, a toxic leader may seem very charming with his amazing characteristics traits but after some period of time, a range of evil behaviors become apparent which intimidate, demoralize and undermine others and make them suffered intentionally in various sectors. They sometimes torture and terrorize people without any reasonable cause becomes corrupt and criminal being engaged in various disenfranchising activities. They take control of the power and spread fears among the people and damage the capacity of the followers and intentionally misdiagnose issues and various problems and increase the intensity of toxicity and mislead the subordinates to some of the wrong paths. The toxic leaders intentionally infiltrate in various structures and process and subvert them for generating injustice and follow various criminal acts build a dynasty of illegal processes for supporting chaos and dysfunctional activities in different layers of the society (Blumen, 2016).
Lipman (2015) says that the effects of toxic leadership are most detrimental to the individual level. Lower self-worth feeling makes the employee decrease self-insight following low self-esteem generates various complex psychological reactions and increases helplessness and frustration at the very individual and personal level. Both the followers and the non-followers are affected by the toxic leadership where the toxic leaders follow their counterproductive performance action and drag down moral values and enthusiasm of others to inflate various kinds of dark situations. The toxic leaders are psychopaths and sometimes sadists who take pleasure inflicting pain and sufferings to others. Toxic tendencies within a person do not grow in a day rather there can be various types of elements which give birth to the dark side of leaders gradually. The past of toxic leaders does not often seem and hereby there can be various types of elements which make the toxic leadership style are evolved following the course of time. There can be various psychological reasons and factors that give birth to toxic behaviors of the leaders and maximum times the types of leaders have followers who provide compliance and required assistance. Sometimes the toxic leaders have a high level of influential power which helps him to make others join with him to follow his malicious acts and unethical deeds which he convinces the followers that they are going to of something memorable and historical (Maslow, 2013).
In various organizational levels, the impacts of toxic leadership can be very severe. In the context of organizational culture, the work efforts of the employees and workforce decrease with the sharp decline in work quality. Blumen (2015) states that The leadership toxicity increases the employee turnover at a great extent and sometimes the number reaches a scary percentage. Again sometimes the very foundation of an organization is affected by inflicting physical and psychological damage in a subordinate and organizational level. Various public sectors, political, spiritual and other sectors can be greatly affected by the counterproductive work behavior and cynical working actions of the toxic leaders. The detrimental acts of toxic leadership affect various public health services, transportation, monetary service, and many others. Again there can be various types of myths regarding the toxic leadership styles and some develop various ideas about them which may not be always true. Some may think that toxic leaders are the profit makers who are capable of achieving rewarding corporate goals and objectives. Some may think that these heinous dealers have strong roots which cannot be removed from various layers of society following some individual efforts. Here for creating a remedy for such toxicity of leadership one has to think in a different way. Here the organizations are required to make standing and find the related factors and variables. They have to accept the fact that there can be some factors and elements within the organization that gives birth or at least support to such toxic behavior and there is a huge chance that there can be a problem within the organization that they need to accept and look for a solution (Lipman, 2015).
The police departments are required to accomplish a range of activities. For doing their performance actions they have to follow and be guided by a wide range of legal and organizational procedures and policies. They are required to take control of a situation without making them exacerbate. The police are required to follow various strategies and go through an effective strategic decision-making process. Any kinds of strategic incompetence and leadership failure can cause the failure of the whole department. The USA police departments are having various issues and problems in the present days. Currently, the USA police department does not have any central authorities. The lack of central authority makes the department lack in law enforcement. In many cases, the federal laws are used by the states to go through their own decision which causes institutionalized discrimination. The police department of the USA sometimes goes through various homicide activities and there is no tracking back of these incidents. Many police shooting is not properly reported. Many of the police shooting cases do not follow any kind of indictment. In the present days, a huge number of military equipment is provided to the local police departments and a large number of SWAT raids in various regions sometimes targets the wrong people. Sometimes the police follow the some of the false reports and trouble the innocent people. Again some claims say that the normal people are often raided for the cases of drugs and hereby they say that the SWATS raids do not engage in rescuing people from abusers and other worse cases. The operations of the police department in various regional areas and urban areas are not always the same. The police follow various internal policies on their own and hereby flout the system for the lack of central authority. Though the police departments are supposed to give a fight against drugs they are themselves often high on drugs. In the USA police department, some of the police personnel themselves admitted that they intake steroids for the physical rigors they need for taking control of a situation. Some of the police personnel are trying to get a handle on these issues and follow the internal operating system on their own. The employee turnover rate in the police department is considerably lower compared to education and other sectors. The recruitment and selection process often face various troubles and issues in the USA police departments. Various law enforcement agencies face problems in hiring and retaining the qualified and eligible candidates. There can be various issues and factors behind the low rate of employee retention in the police department of the USA (Jean, 2015).
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research philosophy:
For conducting a research project there are three types of research philosophies for the researchers. The two philosophies are positivism, realism, and interpretivism research philosophy. The realism philosophy helps the researchers go through an effective level of scientific analysis. The researcher has used the positivism research philosophy for conducting the current research that concentrates on toxic leadership and its impact on the police department. The researcher had to go through various mathematical data for enabling various mathematical and statistical analyses for completing the present research work and as per the aim and objectives of the research, this philosophy was appropriate.
3.2 Research strategy:
The researchers need to follow a certain research strategy for completing research work. Hereby the researchers can select two options for going through research work and these two options are quantitative and qualitative research strategy. The quantitative research strategy takes up various quantitative data which are numeric in nature and goes through various mathematical and statistical analyses. On the other hand, the qualitative research strategy goes through descriptive analysis following non-numeric data (Price, 2013).
The researcher has used quantitative research strategy for collecting numeric data so that mathematic analysis is possible.
3.3 Research approach:
There are two types of research approaches for the researchers to choose from and these are the inductive and deductive approach. The inductive approach does not follow a certain path and the deductive approach allows the researchers to follow a certain way for completing the research work properly (Price, 2013).
The researcher has used the deductive approach for completing the present research work as it will properly allow them to go through a definite way for research completion.
3.4 Time horizon:
There are two types of time horizon and these are cross-sectional and longitudinal time horizon. The cross-sectional time horizon will allow the researcher to collect data from the respondents only once. The longitudinal can collect data multiple times.
The researcher has collected data only once and here the cross-sectional time horizon is perfect (Cameron, 2013)
3.5 Data sources:
There are two types of data sources which are primary and secondary. The researchers can collect data using the primary sources on the first hand. The researcher has used the primary sources for collecting data for the current research.
In order to produce a result that is most relevant to the topic, primary sources are most appropriate.
3.6 Data collection tools:
The researcher has used a questionnaire for collecting data from the respondents of the police department. Questionnaires which was shared with the employees using Google Drive. The questionnaire contains two demographic question and 5 specific statements regarding the topic and related factors, against a 5-point Liker scale in order to collect primary data, eligible for quantitative analysis and representation.
3.7 Population and sampling:
All the observation present related to a research work is known as a population. A small section for his population of the research is the sample of the observation. All the employees of the police department are the population of the research (Price, 2013).
As data collection from all the employees of the whole department is not feasible the researcher has used the sampling method where 50 police personnel were contacted and using Google drive a questionnaire was sent to them for their response.
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION
The research has specified that it has implemented a quantitative strategy with primary data collected from primary sources. To collect data for quantitative research data needs to be collected in a way so that various quantitative analysis is possible. Therefore, a questionnaire method has been used and provided to 50 police personnel. The questionnaire includes 2 demographic questions and 5 statements put against a 5-point Likert scale so that the respondents can express their level of agreement regarding the statements.
Once the responses have been accumulated, in the following section response to each of the statement has been analyzed using appropriate graphical demonstration. Finally, a discussion has been included to explain the finding altogether.
The research has undertaken the following objectives:
To find out various factors related to leadership and toxic leadership
To find out if toxic leadership has an impact on the job performance of the employees
To find out if toxic leadership has a psychological impact on the employees
4.1 Data analysis
Table 1: Respondents on the basis of Gender
Gender
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Male
31
62%
62%
62%
Female
19
38%
38%
100%
Total
50
100%
100%
The table above categorizes the respondents following gender analysis. Hereby total of 50 people attended the survey among which 62 percent are male and 38% are female. A graphical representation of the respondents following their gender analysis has been given below:
Figure 1: Gender analysis
Table 2: Respondents on the basis of age
Range of age
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Below 25 Years
10
20%
20%
20%
26-35 Years
25
50%
50%
70%
36-45 Years
8
16%
16%
86%
46-55 Years
6
12%
12%
98%
Over 55 Years
1
2%
2%
100%
Total
50
100%
100%
In the above-mentioned table, the respondents have been divided following their ages. Hereby percentage of respondents below 25 years are 20, between 26 to 35 years is 50%. Again the number of 36 to 45 years is 16%, 46 to 55 years are 12% and over 55 years is 2%. Hereby total numbers of respondents are 50.
Figure 2: Respondents on the basis of age
Table 4: I can work with the same level of motivation no matter how my leaders are
Dimensions
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly Disagree
31
62
62
62
Disagree
15
30
30
92
Indifferent
0
0
0
92
Agree
3
6
6
98
Strongly Agree
1
2
2
100
Total
50
100%
100%
Above mentioned table shows that the majority of respondents strongly disagree that leadership style bears influence over employee motivation. Hereby 62% of the employees strongly disagree, 30% of them disagree. Only 6% agree and 2% strongly agree with the fact that leadership impacts the motivation of the employees.
Figure 4: I can work with the same level of motivation no matter how my leaders are
Table 5: I have worked under toxic leadership at some point in my career
Dimensions
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly Disagree
5
10
10
10
Disagree
12
24
24
34
Indifferent
1
2
2
36
Agree
25
50
50
86
Strongly Agree
7
14
14
100
Total
50
100%
100%
In order to understand how many of the respondents have been subjected toxic leadership directly this question has been included. This also can provide a sense of how critical is the toxic leadership condition in the police department.
The responses indicate that most of the police personnel who completed this survey agreed to the given statement implying that they have worked under toxic leadership at some point in their careers. The table is showing that 50% of the police personnel have agreed to the statement and another 14% have strongly agreed to it. However, 10% have strong disagreed and 24% have disagreed with the given statement.
Figure 5: I have worked under toxic leadership at some point in my career
Table 6: I have never seen firsthand police personnel quitting their job just because of facing toxic behavior from their superior
Dimensions
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly Disagree
15
30
30
30
Disagree
27
54
54
84
Indifferent
0
0
0
84
Agree
3
6
6
90
Strongly Agree
5
10
10
100
Total
50
100%
100%
As has been mentioned, employee turnover in the police force is higher than other occupation. This question tries to find out if toxic leadership any way contributes to the employee turnover rate of it.
The responses clearly indicate that most of the police personnel who participated in this survey disagree with the asked question implying that they have seen people leaving their job because of toxic behavior from their superior officers. Where only 6% agree and 10% strongly agree that they haven’t seen anything like that firsthand, 30% strongly disagree and 54% disagree implying otherwise.
Figure 6: I have never seen firsthand police personnel quitting their job just because of facing toxic behavior from their superior
Table 7: Just a good leadership style can significantly reduce the stress of the job
Dimensions
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly Disagree
3
6
6
6
Disagree
5
10
10
16
Indifferent
0
0
0
16
Agree
22
44
44
60
Strongly Agree
20
40
40
100
Total
50
100%
100%
In order to find out if the impact of the leadership of employees’ mental stress the above statement has been included.
The table is showing that a vast majority of the police personnel who participated in the survey have agreed to this statement than just a good leadership style can significantly reduce the stress of the job. Only 10% of them have disagreed and another 6% have strongly disagreed with this given statement where 44% of the police personnel have agreed and additionally 40% have strongly agreed with the statement.
Figure 7: Just a good leadership style can significantly reduce the stress of the job
Table 8: I feel very inspired by the current leadership style
Dimensions
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly Disagree
10
20
20
20
Disagree
15
30
30
50
Indifferent
0
0
0
50
Agree
15
30
30
80
Strongly Agree
10
20
20
100
Total
50
100%
100%
In order to find out if the current leadership style they are under is inspiring or not, the statement has been included in the questionnaire.
Among 50 respondents 10% strongly disagree and 12% disagree that they feel inspired by the current leadership style. No respondents were indifferent and 30% agree and the percentage of strongly agree is 20%.
Figure 8: I feel very inspired by the current leadership style
4.2 Discussion
According to the research, it can be asserted that the leadership style has a profound on the overall performance and the level of motivation of the employees. The research has pointed out that it is impossible to work with the same level of motivation regardless of what kind of leadership style is being implemented. As a profession policing itself causes a great deal of stress due to the nature of the job and the complicated surrounding that constantly impact the personnel. Therefore, it is very important to have a strong motivating force driving the personnel. Leadership is supposed to assume that role.
The research also indicates that in police force toxic leadership is a problem as the majority of the respondents have at some point in their careers worked under toxic leadership. This assertion has been further proved when asked if they have seen people quitting just because of toxic leadership. The response to both of these statements clearly indicates that toxic leadership is turning out to be a huge issue that is directly contributing to the growing employee turnover rate in the police force.
It is evident that due to the nature of the job the police department does not use the same methods that an ordinary organization uses. Where most of the organizations these days are more inclined towards democratic leadership styles police department cannot use such leadership as a chain of command is something that is very important here. Although when it comes to employee motivation and satisfaction democratic leadership style has been consistently showing positive results. Despite the fact that this leadership style cannot be applied here, some features of the style can surely help. The research indicates that a good leadership style can reduce their job stress in a significant manner which can improve the job performances of the personnel. A democratic leadership style emphasizes on valuing the employees and inspiring them by making them feel valued; this feature can be implemented under the current context as well.
The research also pointed out that even though a lot the personnel feel inspired under the current leadership they are operating a lot of them do not feel the same. This means the very concentration of leadership which is inspiring the subordinates is failing.
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION
5.1 Conclusion
The current research work focuses on toxic leadership and the impact it has on police personnel working under such a leadership style. The researchers hereby try to know the impact of leadership styles on the motivation of the employees of the Police department as well. The current research contains the importance of these two variables in the organizational context and how these two have influence in the organizational context of the overall organization. The research follows a quantitative research strategy for collecting data from the respondents and analyses them for finding the proper research result. The research has been conducted by preparing a questionnaire and distributed it among the respondents who are the employees of the police department. The research follows a random sampling method where 50 selected randomly for collecting primary data first hand. The research has used various tables and graphs for representing the collected data from the primary respondents. The research concludes leadership style plays a great role in employee motivation inspiration. The research has indicated that the current environment of the police department is highly impacted by toxic leadership and a majority of the respondents experienced it and seen people leaving the job due to this. The research also points out that using a positive leadership style job stress can be significantly reduced which is likely to increase the level of job performance.
5.2 Recommendation
The nature of the police job is a stressful one and here strong motivation factor is needed for this is one of the driving forces for sustaining in the highly complicated surrounding of the policing jobs. The current research work shows that the US police department is facing huge toxic leadership issues and that majority of the respondents have worked under toxic leadership and quitted their job for it. This is one of the major reasons for the high employee turnover rate in the police force. Following these findings of the recent research work the following recommendation can be made
The current research indicates that there is a positive relationship between leadership style and motivation of the employees. This means that if the proper level of leadership style can be adopted the motivation level of the employees will be increased. Sometimes the higher authorities of the police department tend to adopt their preferred leadership style as there is no central authority there. Hereby the leaders of the police department can adopt proper leadership style following the demands of the situation which is sure to increase the motivation of the employees and increase the performance level of the employees and develop the overall condition along the way.
Changes in the leadership style can bring about positive changes within the organization and increase organizational performance activity. For motivating the employees the democratic style plays an important role and the police department cannot compromise their organizational performance. Here proper balance has to be maintained. The whole department has to be careful for retaining the employees and improve their performance at the same time following the appropriate style of leadership.
The US police department does not maintain proper policies for maintaining the performance actions the same in different places. Hereby the department has to identify some of the specific problems within the department and seek the solution for motivating the employees for proper actions. The organization can go for the internal audit so that it can go through an effective level of motivation process for all the employees and police personnel.
Following the transformational leadership style, an organization can achieve various long term goals and build some of the effective team along with the proper level of team attitude. For motivating the employees and increasing the retention of the employees along with providing them some of the employee benefits this theory of leadership can be of great help for the whole organization. Hereby the police department of USA can focus on long term goals and objectives and achieve them for sustaining a continuous development process along the way.
The USA police department has to go through a proper level of the evaluation process for knowing various issues that are currently prevalent in various sectors of recruitment, training, discipline, and supervision of the department. For the overall improvement process of the department, it has to ensure the proper level of citizen complaint process which can effectively help it identify various issues and come to a solution.
For improving the overall policing process the US police department has to improve public interaction and know how the normal citizens are being affected by them. The overall accountability of the department has to be ensured. The US police department does not have any central authority currently. The government can increase control over the department and increase its accountability along the way. The department has to be careful so that the increasing number of SWAT teams and their raids do not disturb the normal people and make them suffer in any way.
5.3 Ethical issues:
Following all the required ethical guidelines the present research work has been accomplished. The research lists and mentioned a number of authors whose finding and works have been used in this research. The current research does not disclose any primacy issues of the respondents rather the research respects their privacy issues. After analyzing the collected data and finding the research result the collected responses have been destroyed and do not reveal any private information of the respondents.
5.4 Research limitations:
The current research could have been done following a range of variables. The time and budget of the research was limited and followed only one industry. Using a larger sample the current research could have been accomplished in the context of more than one industry. The current research opens the door of many other research ideas which can be done following enough time period. In this research, a small portion of the research sample was used for collecting relevant data
REFERENCE
Abraham Maslow. (2013). The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. (New York: Viking Press). Otto Rank. (1932/1968). Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development. (New York: W. W. Norton)
Bass, B.M. & Riggio, R.E. (2016) “Transformational Leadership” 2nd edition
Blackstone, W., & Lewis, W. (2012). Commentaries on the laws of England. Philadelphia: Rees Welsh and Company.
Elemér Hankiss. (2014). Fears and Symbols: An Introduction to the Study of Western Civilization. (Budapest: Central European University Press).
Ernest Becker. (2015). The Denial of Death. (New York: Basic Books).
Gallos, J.V. (2012) “Business Leadership: A Jossey-Bass Reader” 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons
Jean Lipman-Blumen. (2015). The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses and Corrupt Politicians – and How We Can Survive Them. (New York: Oxford University Press).
Jean Lipman-Blumen. (2016). “The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why Followers Rarely Escape Their Clutches or The Paradox of Toxic Leadership.” Ivey Business Journal, January, 2005.
Jean Lipman-Blumen. (2015). “Toxic Leadership: When Grand Illusions Masquerade as Noble Visions.” Leader to Leader, Spring.
Kouzes, J.M. & Posner, B.Z. (2013) “The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership” in Business Leadership: A Jossey-Bass Reader, editor Gallos, J.V.
Northouse, P.G. (2010) “Leadership: Theory and Practice” 5th edition, SAGE
APPENDIX
1A Questionnaire
Examination of Toxic Leadership and Impact on Police Personnel
Gender (Please Tick Mark)
Male
Female
Age (Please Tick Mark)
Range of age
Below 25 Years
26-35 Years
36-45 Years
46-55 Years
Over 55 Years
(Please Tick Mark)
I can work with the same level of motivation no matter how my leaders are
SA
A
I
D
SD
I have worked under toxic leadership at some point in my career
SA
A
I
D
SD
I have never seen first-hand police personnel quitting their job just because of facing toxic behavior from their superior
SA
A
I
D
SD
Just a good leadership style can significantly reduce the stress of job
SA
A
I
D
SD
I feel very inspired under the current leadership style
SA
A
I
D
SD
NOTE: SA = Strongly Agree, A = Agree, I = Indifferent, D = Disagree and SD = Strongly Disagree
1B List of Tables and figure
Table 1: Respondents on the basis of Gender
Gender
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Male
31
62%
62%
62%
Female
19
38%
38%
100%
Total
50
100%
100%
Figure 1: Gender analysis
Table 2: Respondents on the basis of age
Range of age
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Below 25 Years
10
20%
20%
20%
26-35 Years
25
50%
50%
70%
36-45 Years
8
16%
16%
86%
46-55 Years
6
12%
12%
98%
Over 55 Years
1
2%
2%
100%
Total
50
100%
100%
Figure 2: Respondents on the basis of age
Table 4: I can work with the same level of motivation no matter how my leaders are
Dimensions
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly Disagree
31
62
62
62
Disagree
15
30
30
92
Indifferent
0
0
0
92
Agree
3
6
6
98
Strongly Agree
1
2
2
100
Total
50
100%
100%
Figure 4: I can work with the same level of motivation no matter how my leaders are
Table 5: I have worked under toxic leadership at some point in my career
Dimensions
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly Disagree
5
10
10
10
Disagree
12
24
24
34
Indifferent
1
2
2
36
Agree
25
50
50
86
Strongly Agree
7
14
14
100
Total
50
100%
100%
Figure 5: I have worked under toxic leadership at some point in my career
Table 6: I have never seen firsthand police personnel quitting their job just because of facing toxic behavior from their superior
Dimensions
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly Disagree
15
30
30
30
Disagree
27
54
54
84
Indifferent
0
0
0
84
Agree
3
6
6
90
Strongly Agree
5
10
10
100
Total
50
100%
100%
Figure 6: I have never seen firsthand police personnel quitting their job just because of facing toxic behavior from their superior
Table 7: Just a good leadership style can significantly reduce the stress of the job
Dimensions
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly Disagree
3
6
6
6
Disagree
5
10
10
16
Indifferent
0
0
0
16
Agree
22
44
44
60
Strongly Agree
20
40
40
100
Total
50
100%
100%
Figure 7: Just a good leadership style can significantly reduce the stress of the job
Table 8: I feel very inspired by the current leadership style
Dimensions
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly Disagree
10
20
20
20
Disagree
15
30
30
50
Indifferent
0
0
0
50
Agree
15
30
30
80
Strongly Agree
10
20
20
100
Total
50
100%
100%
Figure 8: I feel very inspired by the current leadership style
PAGE 54
Running Head: TOXIC LEADERSHIP