Relationship between toxic leadership and organizational cynicism in organizations

Toxic Leadership, one of the dark leadership styles, is a type of toxic leadership that is not clear how, when and under what conditions it will emerge. The uncertain and toxic environment created by toxic leadership has a negative effect on employees who are followers. The toxic leader has characteristics such as abusive supervision, authoritarian, narcissism, self-promotion and unpredictability. Toxic leadership causes some negative attitudes and behaviors to occur in the organization and employees. One of these reactions is organizational cynicism, which refers to employees believing that the organization is dishonest, having negative feelings towards the organization, and developing a derogatory attitude towards the organization due to this belief and feeling. Organizational cynicism emerges cognitively, affectively and behaviorally. This study aims to examine the relationship between employees' perception of toxic leadership and organizational cynicism in organizations. In this context, the relationship between the toxic leadership perceptions and organizational cynicism of employees working in the headquarters and branches of a joint-stock company operating in the energy distribution sector in Denizli, Izmir and Manisa provinces was examined and the findings were discussed in the conclusion section. According to the research findings, although employees' toxic leadership perception and organizational cynicism levels are low, toxic leadership perception affects organizational cynicism positively and significantly. 32% of the organizational cynicism in employees stems from the perception of toxic leadership. In addition, it was observed that the sub-dimensions of toxic leadership positively and significantly affect the sub-dimensions of organizational cynicism.