Lipman-Blumen identifies the following characteristic destructive behaviors of toxic leaders (pp. 19-20):
- Leaving their followers (and sometimes non-followers) worse off than they found them by deliberately undermining, demeaning, seducing, marginalizing, intimidating, demoralizing, disenfranchising, incapacitating, imprisoning, torturing, terrorizing, or killing them;
- Violating the basic human rights of their own supporters and others;
- Engaging in corrupt, criminal, and/or other unethical activities;
- Deliberately feeding their followers illusions that enhance the leader’s power and impair the followers’ capacity to act independently, including depicting themselves as the only one who can “save” the followers;
- Playing to the basest fears and needs of their followers;
- Stifling constructive criticism and teaching supporters (sometimes by threats and authoritarianism) to comply with, rather than to question, the leader’s judgment and actions;
- Misleading followers through deliberate untruths and misdiagnoses of issues and problems;
- Subverting those structures and processes of the system intended to generate truth, justice, and excellence and engaging in criminal acts;
- Building totalitarian or narrowly dynastic regimes, including undermining the legal processes for selecting and supporting new leaders;
- Failing to nurture other leaders, including their own successors (with the occasional exception of blood kin) or otherwise improperly clinging to power;
- Maliciously setting constituents against one another;
- Treating their own followers well, but persuading them to hate and/or destroy others;
- Identifying scapegoats and inciting others to castigate them;
- Structuring the costs of overthrowing them as a trigger for the downfall of the system they lead, thus further endangering followers and non-followers, alike;
- Failing to recognize or ignoring and/or promoting incompetence, cronyism, and corruption; and
- Behaving incompetently by misdiagnosing problems and failing to implement solutions to recognized problems.
Other toxic behaviors of leaders (Lipman-Blumen's list is not exhaustive) are:
- Toxic leaders use scarce resources to build monuments to themselves, rather than meet their followers' basic needs. For example, "some use corporate jets, decorate opulent executive suites, and draw multimillion-dollar salaries as their firms undergo serious downsizing. Saddan Hussein maintained a multibillion-dollar palace construction program while his people went hungry and sick." (21)
- Toxic leaders treat their low-status followers shabbily, while "the elite receive white-glove treatment." (Ib.)
- Lack of integrity that reveals leaders as cynical, corrupt, or untrustworthy;
- Insatiable ambition that prompts leaders to put their own sustained power, glory, and fortunes above their followers’ well-being;
- Enormous egos that blind leaders to the shortcomings of their own character and thus limit their capacity for self-renewal;
- Arrogance that prevents toxic leaders from acknowledging their mistakes and, instead, leads to blaming others;
- Amorality that makes it nigh impossible for toxic leaders to discern right from wrong;
- Avarice that drives leaders to put money and what money can buy at the top of their list;
- Reckless disregard for the costs of their actions to others, as well as to themselves;
- Cowardice that leads them to shrink from the difficult choices; and
- Failure both to understand the nature of relevant problems and to act competently and effectively in situations requiring leadership. (21-22)
- Leaving their followers better off than when they found them;
- Treating their followers with honor and dignity;
- Creating a team of leaders where all are valued and important to the outcome;
- Upbuilding and strengthening their followers;
- Encouraging and allowing for contrary opinions, to include questioning the leader;
- Being truthful;
- Creating a system whereby truth, justice, and excellence predominates;
- Being egalitarian when it comes to calling forth new leaders;
- Nurturing of leaders so they succeed, and even surpass, the leader;
- Resolving conflict in healthy ways;
- Being loving towards others;
- Taking and sharing responsibility for failures;
- Squarely facing incompetence and corruption, whether personal or corporate.
- Having integrity;
- Can be trusted;
- Lack of ambition re. personal fame and glory;
- Placing their followers' well-being above their own;
- Humility;
- Acknowledging personal failures and mistakes;
- High moral character;
- Places their followers at the top of the list, and not personal economic gain;
- Considers the effects of their decisions upon others;
- Courageous and able to make difficult choices;
- Displaying competence, effectiveness, and understanding in leadership situations.
