The Shadow Side of Leadership: Why Good Intentions Aren’t Enough

We often think toxic leadership is about bad people. But what if it’s really about the systems that let darkness thrive?

Malcolm Higgs, academic, consultant, and co-author with Dr Sinem Bulkan, PhD, SFHEA of Dark Leadership: Navigating Toxic Organisations and Transformational Change, has spent years studying how individual traits and organizational cultures interact - and how some environments quietly reward the very behaviours they claim to reject.

In this conversation, we explore what happens when charisma turns coercive, when pressure turns people inward, and when ambition starts to erode trust.

This isn’t about blame. It’s about awareness. Because every organization, like every leader, has a shadow - and it’s only by seeing it that we can begin to lead differently.

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