The Next One Will Be Wrong Too: Why Organizations Produce Toxic Leadership

Why does the next leader often fail just like the previous one?Organizations like to explain toxic leadership as a personnel problem. A difficult supervisor, a narcissistic coach, an overwhelmed professor, a harsh department head. Then they replace, reassign, communicate reassurances—and after some time, the same dynamic starts all over again.This book proposes a more uncomfortable thesis: Toxic leadership is not an accident. It is a product of the structures that create it.Short measurement intervals, temporary dependencies, weak oversight mechanisms, diffuse responsibility, the cultural glorification of toughness, and the taboo against weakness create a support system in which destructive leadership not only becomes possible but is often rewarded. Those who lead under these conditions pass pressure down. Those who are led learn to stay silent. Those who observe look away. And those who demand reform often get resilience workshops instead of structural change.Starting with professional soccer, this book shows why replacing individual people is rarely enough. The coaching change becomes a visible pseudo-solution: it placates the environment, shifts responsibility, and creates the impression of control. But when the conditions remain the same, the next person inherits the same system—and will likely fail due to the same mechanisms.From there, the analysis extends to academia, funding organizations, and high-performance systems. It shows why temporary contracts, grant-based logic, pressure for loyalty, funding dependencies, medal-focused orientation, and consulting rhetoric produce similar leadership dynamics. The settings differ. The mechanics remain strikingly consistent.This book is not a guide for better dealing with difficult bosses. It contains no mindfulness exercises, no resilience checklists, and no comforting platitudes. It does not ask how people can better endure toxic systems. It asks why these systems emerge, why they remain stable—and what would actually need to change.Because toxic leadership does not disappear through the next personnel change. It disappears only when the architecture that produces it is transformed.An analytical, fact-based work about power, dependency, organizational failure, and the dangerous illusion that the next one will be the right one. Read more