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The article I find was titled “Toxic Leadership” by colonel George E. Reed. My first take away from this article is that they make it very clear that these toxic leaders are very dominant. For example, in the article it says, “Writer Marcia Whicker describes toxic leaders as “maladjusted, malcontent, and often malevolent, even malicious. They succeed by tearing others down. They glory in turf protection, fighting and controlling rather than uplifting followers.”(George 2004) This quote is absolutely right because I’ve dealt with leaders like this on my high school football team, he thought since he was bigger and older than me that he could intimidate and boss me around which made me want to quit the team. Another take away from this article is that toxic leaders are not just the loud and arrogant ones, the leaders that let you walk all over them are also toxic. In the article it says, “A leader with a soft voice and façade of sincerity can also be toxic.”(George 2004) This simple quote says a lot because if you have a leader like this no one will see you as a leader, it will be ha4rd to come to a conclusion and to get everyone to listen to what you have to say becasue they will only care about their ideas and try to bully you in order to get what they want; these type of leaders could be worse than the loud and arrogant type. The last thing I took away from this article is your subordinates will eventually try to get rid of you anyway possible. In the article it says, “Superiors took no action and, characteristically, no soldier officially complained to the chain of command, but the soldiers considered taking matters into their own hands and discussed shooting him when the company got into combat.8 Things did not go that far because the commander left the unit before Easy Company engaged in combat operations.”(George 2004) This is really dangerous because the leader had no clue that his subordinates would snoop so low and do this instead of just making complaints to get him removed. This is also why you should always think how you make your subordinates feel because it may not be as serious to kill you but they could do something that would damage your reputation and them your life could possibly be ruined.

What are your thoughts on this passage? What lessons can you take from toxic leadership?