**Author details**

Previous studies have primarily focused on the leader's impact on the ability of follower's acceptance of organizational change and management of organizational challenges [10]. Other researchers [11] suggest that leaders need to take a bigger responsibility and assume the role of chief architect of the organizational change process. But one question that remains is how organizational dark sides interplay with destructive leadership. First, we will provide a short presentation of organizational dark sides followed by definitions of destructive leadership.

Previous organizational studies have for decades focused on anorexic, narcissistic, and greedy organizations in order to explain organizational effectiveness and/or the well-being of the organizational members. Narcissistic organizations are characterized by many destructive behaviors denying facts about themselves or using propaganda campaigns. Organizations, just as humans, are able to develop justifications for their actions, to self-aggrandize by claiming their exclusivity, and so on. In anorexic organizations, staffing and material resources are kept to a minimum, and in greedy organizations, greater demands are made on individual stress coping, emotion management, competence, long working hours, constant availability, fixedterm employment contracts, and higher commitment. The common denominator for all three organizational dark sides is that organizations put high demands but offer their organizational members less in return. This can not only be a result of poor decision-making and destructive leadership but also as a consequence of political decisions, uncertainty, and insecurity outside the organization, bad organizational culture, and less transparency (see more information in [12]). Sometimes, negative organizational characteristics tend to be confused with destructive leadership behavior, as it is easier to look for scapegoats among individuals then for structural problems which may be the antecedents for negative organizational behavior. To avoid further

confusion, we will provide contemporary definitions of destructive leadership.

There are several proposed definitions of destructive leadership. One of the first established definitions of destructive leadership was suggested by Einarsen and colleagues [3, 13]. They state that destructive leadership could be defined as "the systematic and repeated behaviour by a leader, supervisor or manager that violates the legitimate interest of the organisation by undermining and/or sabotaging the organisation's goals, tasks, resources, and effectiveness and/or the motivation, well-being or job satisfaction of subordinates" ([3], p. 208). The definition was later developed by Krasikova, Green, and LeBreton [14] suggesting that destructive leadership should be regarded as harmful behavior imbedded in the process of leading (and by excluding behaviors falling under counterproductive work behavior), distinguishing between encouraging subordinates to follow destructive goals and using destructive methods to influence with subordinates, and by viewing destructive leadership as volitional behavior. Schyns and Schilling [15] proposed another definition arguing that destructive leadership is "a process in which over a longer period of time the activities, experiences and/or relationships

**2. Dark sides of the organizational behavior**

2 Dark Sides of Organizational Behavior and Leadership

**3. Destructive leadership**

Maria Fors Brandebo\* and Aida Alvinius

\*Address all correspondence to: maria.forsbrandebo@fhs.se

Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership, Swedish Defence University, Stockholm, Sweden
