Essay - Toxic Leadership: the Story of Al Chainsaw Dunlap Leadership is...

Toxic Leadership: The Story of Al Chainsaw Dunlap

***** is the lifeblood of the organization. Leaders set ***** tone for organizational culture. The workers and managers look to top leaders for examples of communication style, dress, and attitude. The leader can make or break the organization, from th***** standpoint. For better or w*****se, the leader determines the course that the ***** will take on all levels (Curry, 2002). The following ***** explore an extreme case of "toxic leadership," that is leadership that takes ***** corporati***** down the road to destruction. One of the most famous ***** of "toxic leadership" in recent years is the case of Al "Cha*****saw" *****. We will explore what ********** him different and why he chose ***** path that he did.

***** ***** Dysfunction

Al "Chainsaw" Dunlap is famous for his tendency to "**********" a company. ***** earned his nickname by ruthlessly cutting jobs in order to increase t***** share price of the corporation. It is a basic assumption that the CEO will have the interests ***** the organization at the forefront. However, one must wonder if it were incompetence, or self-serving ***** ***** caused Al Dunlap to plunge Sunbeam-Oster into bankruptcy (Byrne, 1998).

Dunlap developed his style while ***** Scott paper and Crown-Zellerbach. His methods encompassed cutting costs drastically in order to inflate the prof*****s, thus giving a false sense of security to inves*****rs. This caused an unrealistic increase in share price and boosted investor pr*****its. However, Dunlap misjudged the Sunbeam ***** and his plan backfired, plummeting stock prices from $53/share to $11/share four months later when industry leaders revealed that *****'s revenues had been padded (Byrne, *****).

***** of Dunlap's key techniques involved deceptive accounting practices. Dunlap worked side deals with retailer to give them deep discounts. ***** enticed them to buy more than they could handle. Excess merchandise was shipped to warehouses and delivered later. However, the sales revenue was realized in ***** books immediately (Byrne, 1998). The money was not actually there, but it appeared as if Sunbeam were realizing huge revenues through massive sales. Shareholder's grew weary and Dunlap was fired. He had ***** repay $15 million in a shareholder lawsuit (Byrne, *****).

If one examines this story on the surface, it would appear that Dunlap was simply a poor m*****nager, but ***** is more to the story ***** lies just below the surface. When *****e begins to look at organizational *****, it becomes apparent that Dunlap did ***** ***** simply mislead shareholders. Behind Dunalp ***** a fiery person*****l*****y that was known for storming out of Board Rooms, leaving o*****rs dumbstuck at his actions (Byrne, 1998). T***** hardly paints the picture of as a CEO who is calm, reserved, and wise. There were some that became truly concerned by his ***** emotional state and began to question his ability to lead (Byrne, 1998).

Eventually, the board became split between supporters of Dunlap and those that felt he was *****ing them down the road to *****> Dunlap promised backing from major investors,