Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses - by Teresa A Daniel (Paperback)

About the Book

Toxic work culture is driving away 1 in 5 employees at an annual cost of US $44.6 billion to American organizations. Yet ironically, toxic leaders often achieve stellar financial profits, continue to get promoted and remain in their leadership roles. In Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses - Organizational Guardrails to Keep High Performers on Track, employment law attorney Teresa A. Daniel JD, PhD, draws upon numerous studies and interviews to show the real, devastating impact of toxic workplace culture and why leaders must care. This book discusses what signs to look out for in a toxic workplace, factors that promote toxic behavior, types of leaders and how they impact their organization, the role of HR in managing employee wellbeing, and what to look out for in exceptional leaders. With evidence-based strategies for building stronger workplace culture, including tools to help organizations develop better leaders and managers, it makes a compelling case for eradicating toxic leaders as a priority. Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses is for organizational leaders, mid-level managers, supervisors, HR practitioners and anyone else invested in implementing new, tried and tested ideas to improve their organization's culture to create and sustain its optimum success.

Book Synopsis

Shortlisted in the International Business Book category at the Business Book Awards in partnership with Pathway Group 2025

Finalist in the Leadership - HR and Employee Development category of the Goody Business Book Awards 2024

Toxic work culture is driving away 1 in 5 employees at an annual cost of US $44.6 billion to American organizations. Yet ironically, toxic leaders often achieve stellar financial profits, continue to get promoted and remain in their leadership roles.

In Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses - Organizational Guardrails to Keep High Performers on Track, employment law attorney Teresa A. Daniel JD, PhD, draws upon numerous studies and interviews to show the real, devastating impact of toxic workplace culture and why leaders must care.

This book discusses what signs to look out for in a toxic workplace, factors that promote toxic behavior, types of leaders and how they impact their organization, the role of HR in managing employee wellbeing, and what to look out for in exceptional leaders. With evidence-based strategies for building stronger workplace culture, including tools to help organizations develop better leaders and managers, it makes a compelling case for eradicating toxic leaders as a priority.

Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses is for organizational leaders, mid-level managers, supervisors, HR practitioners and anyone else invested in implementing new, tried and tested ideas to improve their organization's culture to create and sustain its optimum success.

Review Quotes

Drawing on years of research and experience in the fields of HR management and employment law, Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses provides practical strategies that organizational leaders, HR practitioners, and workplace coaches can take to keep high performers on track, address problems should they arise, and prevent toxicity from occurring in the first place.

Lynn Harrison, PhD, Master Certified Coach, Coaching Supervisor (and total fan of Teri Daniel)

Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses: Organizational Guardrails to Keep High Performers on Track offers helpful and much needed guidance to identify and eliminate the toxic leaders that drive away employees and ruin workplaces cultures.

Ellen Pinkos Cobb, Attorney & Author of Managing Psychosocial Hazards and Work-Related Stress in Today's Work Environment

Toxic and bullying leaders permeate all sectors and organizations, causing billions in lost employee productivity, absenteeism and turnover. In Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses: Organizational Guardrails to Keep High-Performers on Track. Dr. Teresa Daniel delivers a rare achievement: a book that provides background, context and actionable guidance for C-Suite leaders, HR professionals, and supervisors who wish to be tough--effective, yet kind--leaders. Dr. Daniel even provides guidance and recommendations for employees suffering currently under toxic and bullying supervisors. Meticulously referenced with current and relevant research, this book is an authoritative guide and resource for both practitioners and scholars of leadership and human resources.

Anthony A. Piña, Ed.D., Chief Online Learning Officer, Illinois State University, Editor: Lessons in Leadership in the Field of Educational Technology and Leading and Managing e-Learning: What the e-Learning Leader Needs to Know

I highly recommend Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses: Organizational Guardrails to Keep High-Performers on Track. It's a must-read for every leader in a military or traditional business environment.

Dr. Helen MacLennan, Dean, School of Graduate Business & Technology, Lindsey Wilson College

Dr. Teresa Daniel opens our eyes to the fact that toxic workplaces are destructive--socially, mentally, financially, and even physically. Piercing a veil of delusional normalcy, beyond which workplace cultures themselves honor, endorse - and even reward - erstwhile exploitation of our common emotional biology, she arms us with pragmatic science-based solutions that serve everyone's best interest. To survive, to thrive . . . read this book!

Katherine Peil Kauffman, Interdisciplinary Emotion Theorist and Director, EFS International

The timing of Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses comes at such an important time in our society. This book arms the reader with the tools to identify toxic leadership within their organizations and gives ideas and strategies to support employees to create positive workplace cultures. The cost of toxic leaders is high, but the positive impact of great workplace cultures is greater. The choice between the two can make or break an organization. Dr. Daniel paints a clear picture of both. If improving your workplace culture is important to you, then this book is for you!

Charles Gray, MBA, PhD, HR Consultant, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Hopefully, the US Army and organizations across the globe will require this book as mandatory reading and use it as a foundation in their leadership programs to teach and build competent, caring and tough leaders while continuing to weed out the bullies and toxic leaders.

Brigadier General James E. Shane, US Army (Ret)

About the Author

Dr. Teresa A. Daniel serves as Dean and Professor-Human Resource Leadership Programs at Sullivan University based in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

She has a significant body of research in human resource management (HR) with an emphasis on two primary areas of inquiry: counterproductive work behaviors (focused on workplace bullying, sexual harassment, and toxic leadership), and HR's unique role and its impact on organizational effectiveness (primarily in the management of toxic workplace emotions, responding to situations of workplace bullying and harassment, dealing with toxic leaders, building positive work cultures, and the management of people during mergers and acquisitions). She provides consulting services focused on these topics at InterConnections LLC.

Dr. Daniel's research has been actively supported by the national Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) through the publication of numerous articles, interviews, and books. Her newest work is Organizational Toxin Handlers: The Critical Role of HR, OD, and Coaching Practitioners in Managing Toxic Workplace Situations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). She is also the co-author of two books with Dr. Gary Metcalf titled Stop Bullying at Work: Strategies and Tools for HR, Legal & Risk Management Professionals (SHRM, 2016) and The Management of People in Mergers & Acquisitions (Quorum Books, 2001).

She was honored as an Initial Fellow of the International Academy on Workplace Bullying, Mobbing, and Abuse in 2014 and received the Distinguished Alumnus Award at Centre College in 2002. Most recently, she was the 2019 Grand Prize Winner of the national SHRM HR Haiku contest.