The Hidden Roots of Toxic Leadership
Every year, billions of dollars are invested in leadership development. Organizations, churches, nonprofits, and individuals all seek answers to the same question: What makes an effective leader?
Most leadership training focuses on developing skills, increasing knowledge, and building competencies. While these areas matter, there is often a deeper question that goes unaddressed: Why do leaders respond the way they do?
As a therapist, I often work with clients who are learning how to become leaders in their own lives. Some have spent years taking a back seat to others. Some never had healthy examples of leadership. Others are recovering from experiences that left them feeling powerless and disconnected from their own sense of agency. Regardless of their story, one principle consistently emerges: self-awareness is one of the most powerful leadership tools we possess.
Whether you're leading a company, a ministry, a family, or simply your own life, leadership is shaped by more than knowledge and experience. It is influenced by our internal narratives, past experiences, fears, strengths, and unresolved struggles.
In my work with clients, I often remind them that there is strength in understanding where their behaviors, actions, and reactions come from. When you understand the root of why you respond a certain way, you gain valuable insight into how your behavior impacts others and how you show up in different situations.
This is what I often find missing in traditional leadership development. Leaders are frequently evaluated based on what they have done and what they can do. How have they handled stress? Have they managed teams effectively? Can they delegate responsibilities?
These questions matter, but they only tell part of the story.
Without a deeper understanding of why someone responds the way they do, leaders risk operating from unexamined fears, insecurities, and blind spots. When those areas remain hidden, they can quietly shape leadership in unhealthy ways.
Toxic Leadership
A healthy leader understands that growth is a lifelong process. While some leadership cultures promote the idea that leaders should be flawless, this expectation often creates environments where mistakes are hidden rather than addressed.
Toxic leadership rarely begins with a conscious desire to harm others. More often, it emerges when unexamined insecurities, fears, and unmet needs begin to shape decision-making and relationships.
Toxic leadership has been defined as a “management style characterized by abusive behavior, self-centeredness, and a lack of respect for subordinates” (Campbell, 2024). One reason toxic leadership can be difficult to address is that accountability is often redirected away from the leader and onto those around them.
The language may sound familiar:
“They should have…”
“You're the reason…”
“You never said…”
Rather than accepting responsibility, blame is shifted elsewhere.
The same pattern can emerge in our personal lives. When we are leading ourselves from a place of fear, shame, or self-protection, we may find ourselves blaming circumstances or other people without examining the role our own choices and behaviors have played.
At its core, toxic leadership is often rooted in self-preservation. When leaders feel threatened by their perceived weaknesses, they may become defensive, controlling, or unwilling to accept feedback. The very strategies they use to protect themselves can begin to damage the people and systems they are meant to lead.
Understanding Your Growth Areas
Recognizing our growth areas requires vulnerability, and vulnerability is rarely comfortable.
For many people, the internal narratives sounds something like:
“You're not safe.”
“If people really knew you, they would think you're a fraud.”
“If you admit that, you'll be blamed.”
“What will they say about you?”
These messages can make it difficult to seek help, receive feedback, or acknowledge areas where we need support.
Addressing our growth areas requires allowing someone else into the process. Whether that person is a mentor, pastor, therapist, coach, manager, or trusted friend, growth often happens in relationships where honesty and accountability are possible.
Toxic leadership depends on keeping struggles hidden. Healthy leadership brings them into the light.
When we understand our challenges instead of hiding them, we create opportunities for growth and change.
Additional Learning and Training
Sometimes our growth areas simply reflect a lack of experience or knowledge.
Leadership roles often require skills we have not yet developed. Additional education, training, and professional development can help strengthen those areas and build confidence.
The same principle applies in therapy. Many people struggle to lead their own lives effectively because they were never shown how. Therapy can provide opportunities to learn healthier ways of navigating relationships, decision-making, emotional regulation, and personal responsibility.
Collaboration and Coordination
Not every weakness needs to become a strength.
Sometimes our growth area is someone else's area of expertise.
Healthy leaders understand the value of collaboration. They build teams that complement their strengths and compensate for their blind spots. Rather than striving for perfection, they learn how to trust others and work together effectively.
The same is true in personal growth. Additional supports such as therapy groups, support groups, social skills training, community resources, and trusted relationships can provide strengths and perspectives we may not possess on our own.
There is wisdom in knowing when to seek support.
Coaching and Therapy
One of the most challenging parts of growth is moving past the narratives that tell us to stay hidden.
Growth requires spaces where vulnerability is welcomed and supported.
For some people, coaching provides guidance in developing leadership skills and accountability. For others, therapy offers an opportunity to explore the deeper experiences, beliefs, and fears that may be influencing their leadership style.
I firmly believe that most people can benefit from finding a therapist who is a good fit. While that process can take time, therapy creates opportunities to examine the stories we tell ourselves, challenge limiting beliefs, and better understand the patterns that shape our lives.
We are not meant to do this work in isolation.
Do the Hard Work
Very few people step into leadership intending to become toxic leaders.
More often, toxic leadership develops when past experiences shape protective patterns that once served a purpose but are no longer helpful. What once felt necessary for survival can eventually interfere with healthy relationships, collaboration, and growth.
Doing the work of self-awareness is difficult. It may require receiving feedback without becoming defensive, admitting mistakes, examining long-standing patterns, or confronting beliefs that have gone unquestioned for years.
Many leaders publicly acknowledge their shortcomings. Fewer commit to the ongoing work required to address them.
The most effective leaders are not those who have eliminated every weakness. They are the ones who understand themselves well enough to recognize their blind spots, seek support when needed, and remain committed to growth.
They pursue additional training. They engage in coaching or therapy. They build collaborative relationships. They create systems that allow others' strengths to complement their own limitations.
Leadership is not about perfection.
It is about self-awareness, accountability, and the courage to keep growing.
Reflect
What are you being called to do today?
Are there growth areas that have remained hidden in the dark?
Are there patterns, fears, or beliefs that need to be examined with greater honesty?
What might your next step be?
Part of the healing journey is creating space to understand where you are and where you want to go.
Act
Growth requires action.
Lean into the discomfort that can come with taking the next step. Whether that step involves seeking support, pursuing additional training, asking for feedback, or beginning therapy, remember that meaningful change rarely happens without intentional effort.
If you're unsure what that next step looks like, you do not have to figure it out alone.
I am here to support you. Contact Me to begin your therapy journey.
You can also explore our Resource Page, which includes healthcare and community supports as well as the @MFTfoodie Referral List.
