Abstract:

Words such as bullying, toxic leadership, toxic universities or toxic faculties seem to have acquired more and more meaning when we are talking about higher education and its performances. It is obvious that universities have started being led in the similar manner with multinational companies in which performance is measured in economic indices, to the detriment of quality and existential rationale of these educational entities. The participation of universities in fairs promoting study programs with the purpose of attracting students practically ensuring the economic aspects for financially sustaining programs has resulted in a reversed competition which inappropriately alters the traditional notion of university. If, until recently, the competition was among high-school graduates for becoming students of a certain institution of higher education, it seems that together with the phenomenon of globalization and especially the globalization of education, this competition started functioning the other way around, turning universities into competitors for attracting potential students. In a broad sense, this may be put in relation with some aspects of what John Smyth calls a „toxic university”, certainly, figuratively speaking.

In this context, we consider toxic actions, including here actions directed towards the notion of leadership, all the acts of attack and aggression of universities by establishing commercial standards, in addition to imposing managerial, entrepreneurial, performance, rating and internationalization principles even if there were many such instances in which enthusiastic supporters were identified within those universities, fervently embracing many of these ideas. All of them opened a true Pandora Box, creating a toxic competition both among universities and within them, among faculties, departments, and even individuals. The rush after financial resources (institutional and individual) severely affected the academic spirit and long-term fellows started resorting to unethical and immoral actions, almost unimaginable at other times in the academic world. The cannibalization of study programs, the attempt to eliminate or merge traditional educational domains, without sufficient logical argumentation, besides other economic measures, might determine unexpected reactions among the members of academic communities. Thus, they sometimes resort to strange actions such as workplace bullying, both for maintaining educational structures and for promoting their professional and career interests, an aspect we deem as a form of toxic behavior and even toxic leadership if the respective people are in positions of power.

Applying the fundamental research method with the purpose of defining and characterizing the concepts of workplace bullying, toxic behavior, leadership and toxic leadership in higher education, our paper is based on a classical approach in which we start from observations on the grounds of which we elaborate hypotheses to be verified through analysis and case-studies. Furthermore, the descriptive method of research allowed a profound analysis (also made through comparisons) of the various situations or phenomena produces in the academic environment with direct consequences upon leadership, having as a fundament a series of historic, economic, situational, and relational variables.

Keywords:

Workplace bullying, leadership, toxic leadership, higher education.