An Explanatory Study of Toxic Leadership and Servant Leadership Related to Organizational Culture and Behavioral Trust

The purpose of this quantitative ex post facto correlational study was to determine if a relationship exists between followers’ perceptions of toxic leadership and servant leadership as they relate to organizational culture and behavioral trust as measured by the Toxic Leadership Scale (TLS), the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SL-7), the Organizational Culture Scale (OCS), and the Behavioral Trust Inventory (BTI). Toxic leadership was evaluated through the framework of Padilla et al.’s (2007) toxic triangle and Thoroughgood et al.’s (2012) susceptible circle of followers of toxic leaders. Exploring the theoretical context of toxic leadership, this project studied the effects of toxic leadership on the relationship between leaders and followers’ perceptions of their leaders. This quantitative research employed descriptive surveys to determine relationships between followers’ perceptions of toxic leadership and servant leadership as they relate to organizational culture and propensity for behavioral trust. The combined survey was conducted through Prolific. Prolific identified participants who had working relationships with leaders. Participants with experience serving under toxic and servant leaders described and or rated their most recent toxic or servant church leader. Two streams of data resulted from this design. Examination of the data consisted of correlation and regression analyses. Toxic leadership and servant leadership measurements served as the independent variables. Organizational culture elements and propensity for behavioral trust served as the dependent variables under examination.