Business Commons^™

Measuring Bad Leadership In Organisations, James Shaw, Anthony Erickson

Anthony Erickson

This study describes the development of a measure of the nature of bad leadership in organisations. We then use scales developed from that measure in cluster analysis to empirically derive a taxonomy of bad leaders. Data were obtained through a web-based survey that generated 717 respondents. Based on follower perceptions, the results identified seven types of bad leaders based on behaviour-focused scales and seven types of bad leaders identified were not "all bad" but rather perceived as extreme on just one or two characteristics.