Toxic leadership almost always involves heightened anxiety caused by a fear of losing status or a position of leadership resulting in anger, defensiveness, and blame-shifting when confronted. 

There are those leaders who are simply bad. They are toxic to their core and they reap destruction in the workplace. But, there are leaders who begin well and end badly.

What should be second nature to Christian organizations has, in some ways, been purloined by business leadership. Teamwork.

Abuse often lives in a system. Christians are suspicious of systems theory because they think in a “western individualistic” way. However, sometimes, Groupthink is what enables and creates toxic organizations.

Christians read the Psalms and find statements that seem to conflict with the open-hearted, mercy-oriented, forgiveness-driven Gospel we preach from our pulpits. But the "imprecatory Psalms" are as valid now as they were when they were sung in Old Testament worship.

Self-differentiation is rooted in biblical and psychological concepts. We need go no further than to focus on the examples of Jesus and King David to illustrate dependence and trust in God as necessary to use our gifting.