journal of education and practice

Previous studies have focused on the effective aspects of leadership in education and neglected the toxic aspects of educational leadership which is important to identify the behaviours of school leaders who intentionally and unknowingly inflict enduring damage on their followers and school organisation. Thus, this study examined the relationship between toxic leadership behaviour, followership characteristics and their productivity in Lagos State senior secondary schools. Three hypotheses (tested at 0.05 level of significance). With the study’s foundation anchored on correlational and descriptive research designs, its population comprised all Principals, Vice-principals, and teachers in public senior secondary schools in Lagos State. The sample sizes were 98 Principals, 196 Viceprincipals and 980 teachers after stratifying the population into Education Districts and thereafter selected through purposive sampling technique. Analysis was carried out using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Pearsons Product Moment Correlation Analysis and Regression Analysis were used to test the three hypotheses. Findings indicate that a positive and non-significant relationship existed between toxic leadership behaviour and followership commitment to work in Lagos State senior secondary schools (r = 0.025, ρ>0.05); the study also found that there was a negative and non-significant relationship between toxic leadership behaviour and followership loyalty in Lagos State senior secondary schools (r = -0.017, ρ>0.05), and the study further found that there is a positive relationship among toxic leadership behaviour, followership commitment to work, and followership loyalty with followership productivity in Lagos State senior secondary schools. It is concluded that toxic leadership is present in Lagos State public senior secondary schools, as evidenced in the study. The study therefore recommended that school teachers should be exposed to professional development training and opportunities particularly in leadership before placement for leadership positions, as leadership preparation and training are central to school effectiveness and school improvement, and qualified consultants with expertise in organisational leadership should be engaged during the search and selection processes of school leaders so as to detect toxic leaders in waiting.