Studying The Effect of Toxic Leadership on Organizational Trauma: The Intermediating Role of Hypocrisy and Machiavellian Behaviors

Severe stress and shock caused by unforeseen unfortunate events can have many devastating consequences on individuals and the organization. Leadership style is one of the factors that can affect the occurrence of this mental state. Therefore, this study has investigated the role of toxic leadership in the occurrence of organizational trauma. In addition it has studied the intermediating role of hypocritical and Machiavellian behaviors in this relationship.

This research is applied, quantitative, and descriptive-survey. The statistical population consists of employees of government organizations in Kerman. For sampling, stratified random sampling method has been used. The data collection tool was a questionnaire. Structural Equation Modeling through LISREL software was used to analyze the data.

Toxic leadership has had a positive effect on organizational trauma, both directly and through Machiavellian and hypocritical behaviors.

Preventing and correcting non-functional behaviors of managers as behavioral patterns in the organization can prevent the occurrence of destructive behaviors that endanger the mental health of employees.