Rising Above Betrayal: Breaking Free from Toxic Leadership
It is a rare and cruel experience to dedicate yourself to a workplace, only to find it deteriorating into a toxic environment. Over my years at the organisation, I saw first hand how poor leadership can unravel the very fabric of an organisation—transforming a mission I once believed in into a source of distress and disillusionment. This experience taught me not only about the destructive power of toxic leadership but also about the resilience and clarity that emerge from enduring and overcoming such challenges. This is my story, shaped by resilience, a refusal to accept dysfunction, and the eventual clarity that comes from stepping away.
Building the organisation From the Ground Up
When I joined the organisation, the organisation was nothing more than an ambitious idea—an untested concept aiming to improve the local community. Over three years, I dedicated myself to laying its foundation. I developed systems, designed frameworks, and spearheaded initiatives that put the organisation on the map as a key player. From the creation of workflows to the redesign of our flagship project—a programme that initially struggled to gain traction—I took on roles far beyond my remit to ensure the organisation’s success. For example, the programme evolved into one of the most impactful initiatives in the region, recognised widely for its tangible contributions to the community.
One of my proudest accomplishments was reshaping this founding project. What began as a muddled, overly invasive and outdated system became an efficient modern and fresh programme with clear outcomes, a logical client journey, and a fair reward system. This work transformed the organisation’s reputation and brought measurable value to our clients and funders alike. For example, it became the leading programme in the region, receiving commendations from key stakeholders and secured further funding.
But while I focused on growth and collaboration, I began to see signs of a darker undercurrent. This wasn’t just the usual growing pains of a young organisation—it was the impact of toxic leadership.
A Leadership in Chaos
The organisation’s chair portrays herself—and somehow convinces others—that she is a bold, no-nonsense, results-driven leader. In reality, her methods are anything but effective. Her leadership style is erratic and domineering, fostering confusion where there should be clarity, and further compounding the existing dysfunction. The only consistent feature of her leadership is its inconsistency, accompanied by a frequent abuse of power. One notable example is her habit of making sweeping decisions without consulting the team, only to reverse them days later, leaving projects in disarray and morale in tatters. Her management style is sporadic, often offensive, lacking structure or foresight, and, at times, painfully uninspired.
What began as enthusiasm and energy—driven by a determination to make a difference—was quickly replaced by exhaustion and frustration. Admitting defeat was not a matter of incompetence, but a reaction to her relentless inability to focus or provide clear coherent communication & direction. Over time, you concede—not out of incapacity, but in a desperate attempt to make her prioritise, focus, and avoid her long-winded monologues about her supposed brilliance.
Her leadership often devolved into lectures about her unmatched competence—claims that, while initially amusing, quickly became disheartening and counterproductive. These assertions, utterly delusional, left a trail of disengagement and diminishing morale. Instead of fostering empowerment, her leadership style eroded progress, cohesion, and achievement. A cycle that epitomised her inability to maintain stable leadership.
One particularly damaging decision occurred when the chair’s erratic behaviour derailed the organisation’s database project. The project manager, initially committed, eventually withdrew due to her unprofessional and aggressive communication style—even hanging up during a Teams meeting, marking the breaking point. Her inability to collaborate not only delayed progress but cemented her pattern of counterproductive leadership. This set the tone for the years that followed, as inconsistency and dysfunction became her legacy.
Control Over Progress: The chair frequently inserted herself into projects she did not understand, often derailing progress. The CRM system—originally envisioned as a powerful tool to streamline operations and partnership working—became a prime example of this. Her interference and behaviour forced us to abandon plans for inter-organisational collaboration, ultimately damaging our relationship with the main funder. This setback strained critical partnerships, delayed key objectives, and undermined the organisation’s ability to deliver on its mission effectively. Time and again, her involvement left a trail of dysfunction and setbacks.
Blame Culture: The chair’s refusal to accept accountability was one of her most defining traits. Publicly, she would praise initiatives; privately, she shifted blame for the very challenges she created, often dismissing others as incapable of comprehending her so-called brilliance—a brilliance that, over three years, never once materialised. This pattern fostered a toxic cycle of self-preservation at the expense of collaboration, all sanctioned by a board that remained willfully blind to the warning signs. These signs were not subtle; they were waved directly in front of them, yet they chose to look the other way.
Weaponised Procedures: Procedures under her leadership weren’t tools for improvement—they became instruments of control. Disciplinary processes were strategically redrafted and manipulated to serve her agenda, creating an atmosphere of distrust and confusion. Despite my role in crafting the original procedures, I witnessed how they were conveniently altered just weeks before she implemented her so-called master plan. At our final team meeting, she even announced that the updated procedures were available on the shared system. During the disciplinary meeting itself, the chair of the meeting (another board member) blatantly lied to my face—a reflection of the widespread dishonesty entrenched within the organisation. This behaviour exemplified the systemic dysfunction and lack of integrity pervasive at every level.
The Breaking Point
One morning, I received an email that epitomised the organisational failures. The accusations it contained were directed & strategically crafted to undermine my credibility and destabilise my confidence. As I sat reading it, I felt a surge of both anger and clarity. Trust had been eroded long ago through previous dealings with this chair, so I knew documentation would be vital. Recognising the manufactured nature of the situation and the outcome she was orchestrating to protect herself; I decided to refocus my efforts on ensuring the team’s continued success. The toxicity was now undeniable and irreversible. This realisation prompted a shift in my approach. I doubled down on documenting interactions and focused on empowering the team to maintain progress amidst the challenges. At the same time, I began accepting that my exit was now inevitable. No matter how painful this realisation was, preserving my wellbeing and professional integrity required stepping away from the chaos. This email—designed to undermine my contributions and question my competence—marked the weight of betrayal, but it also crystallised a harsh truth: this wasn’t an organisation committed to its values—it was a power structure designed to shield this chairs incompetence at all costs.
A fabricated and deeply dishonest investigation and disciplinary process ensued, culminating in a final meeting chaired by a board member eager to appease. The process was chaotic and entirely disregarded proper protocols and legal requirements. Critical documents necessary for my defence were withheld, and requests for responses were blatantly ignored, eliminating any chance for a fair or transparent process. It became yet another example of the chair’s habitual overreaction and her relentless attempts to deflect scrutiny from her own failings.
This was a disturbing display of mismanagement and a betrayal of organisational values. Despite the chaos and sense of personal and professional betrayal, I remained focused, guiding the team through a critical evaluation that earned external recognition and validated our contributions. Even amidst the chair’s toxic behaviour—including her deliberate efforts to undermine morale, sow division, and pit team members against one another—I upheld professionalism and prioritised the success of the team.
The conflict of interest was glaring. The board allowed the chair to investigate her own incompetence, a decision that revealed their ignorance of their duties. To this day, I’m convinced the board remains blissfully unaware of the damage they have inflicted under their selective governance. Their support of the chair in advancing an investigation into actions she herself orchestrated exemplifies the systemic issues that plague the organisation.
The disciplinary process
The disciplinary process was fundamentally flawed from start to finish. It epitomised a series of procedural failures that exposed the dysfunction embedded within the organisation. Despite raising numerous documented concerns about the chair’s behaviour, these were consistently dismissed or ignored. The board’s decision to include the chair in the disciplinary meeting, despite a glaring conflict of interest and my discomfort with her increasingly toxic behaviour, was both inappropriate and deeply concerning, demonstrating a blatant disregard for fair procedure. In a last-minute effort to address the chaos, an HR professional was hastily brought in even though this was something I requested from the offset, further underscoring the process’s disorganisation and the board’s failure to fulfil its duties. Although I was provided with an itinerary of who was going to be present, it was abruptly changed without my consent, exposing the proceedings as little more than a hollow formality. I I had been consistently raising grievances about both the process and the chair, yet the response was to allow her to be present during the disciplinary meeting. There was absolutely no justification for her involvement, and her presence served as yet another stark example of the control she refused to relinquish. Ironically, the very reason we were all in that room was a direct consequence of her excruciating incompetence—an issue the board clearly lacked the courage or willingness to confront.
Despite orchestrating the entire situation, and ignoring my repeated efforts to intervene and highlight critical information that had been omitted or overlooked, the board still permitted this chair to exert influence over the process. This decision not only undermined the integrity of the proceedings but further demonstrated the board’s failure to hold her accountable.
The investigation report tasked to the chair was nothing short of embarrassing. The very report commissioned by the board—asking the chair to investigate and control the narrative around her own incompetence—was riddled with inaccuracies, key conversations omitted, and data manipulated to support multiple conflicting narratives. It was a carefully crafted document designed to obscure rather than clarify, a glaring attempt to deflect attention from the root cause of the organisation's predicament.
Despite taking nearly three weeks to produce, I only received the report a few days before the disciplinary meeting. Its contents were a blatant diversion from the real issues at hand. I explicitly stated my intention to challenge its contents during the meeting, yet this request was ignored entirely, further highlighting the lack of transparency and fairness in the process.
To make matters worse, the disciplinary chair demonstrated a clear bias by choosing to interpret evidence rather than remain impartial. When I was asked to respond to allegations—which were altered during the meeting itself, rendering my preparation useless—I attempted to explain why the allegations were entirely without merit and far more nuanced than what was presented in the deeply inadequate “investigation report.” I clarified that my actions were based on direct instructions from the organisational chair, clearly & officially documented and signed off by this chair. However, the disciplinary chair abruptly dismissed this, stating he was not interested in anything the chair had instructed me to do, only in the outcomes I had produced. Essentially, I was being criticised—and now subjected to a disciplinary process—for simply following orders. This led to a frustrating and circular exchange that devolved into a pointless back-and-forth for nearly 10 minutes before the disciplinary chair finally recognised how irrelevant and ineffective his questioning was. If no one on the board could align the timing and content of my latest appraisal with the series of events that unfolded, I am truly at a loss to understand their lack of diligence and oversight.
Further compounding the absurdity, the disciplinary chair, despite having the two individuals responsible for the document present at the meeting, opted to offer his own interpretation of the document—a document he had neither contributed to nor witnessed in its creation or discussions. This overreach not only undermined the integrity of the process but completely destroyed any remaining trust I had in its fairness.
The chair of the disciplinary meeting worsened the situation by asking what else could have been done to support me, blatantly disregarding the officially documented and signed agreements with the organisational chair that were specifically created to prevent such an outcome. This question was not only inappropriate but also revealed the deeply disingenuous nature of the process. It was a transparent attempt to divert attention from the damning evidence against the organisational chair while dismissing the ongoing failures of her leadership. By this point, the chair’s toxic influence had seeped into every corner of the organisation, eroding its culture and processes entirely. It took three years to build this organisation, yet this chair managed to unravel its very core in just three weeks.
Organisational Mismanagement
The damage was done, and trust was irreparably broken. I knew it was time to leave. Two weeks before the meeting described above, I was suspended, and the email I received perfectly encapsulated the organisation's mismanagement. When I shared it with a respected union leader—a friend—we couldn’t help but laugh at its blatant contradictions. In a few poorly crafted lines, it managed to publicly document both constructive and unfair dismissal.
The sheer lack of professionalism was astonishing. We were left wondering who could have possibly approved such a statement. Never before had we encountered such a brazenly public admission of wrongdoing, formally documented and shared without any apparent understanding of its implications.
The truth is that bad employers often prioritise their own interests above all else, disregarding context, evidence, and even officially recorded documentation. While I could enumerate the countless errors, the personal toll, and the cruelty inflicted during this time—particularly in my private life—what remains most striking is the glaring example of mismanagement and injustice. This process, riddled with contradictions, untruths, and an alarming lack of transparency, laid bare the systemic failures deeply entrenched within the organisation. Seeking intervention from the board was an exercise in futility; it would take nothing short of a miracle to believe they were unaware of the chaos this chair caused throughout her tenure. The chair’s priority became clear: removing my communication channels to silence the truth, knowing full well that I meticulously documented everything and retained every email, If only she had demonstrated the same level of competence and urgency in her role as she did in removing my access to the documents and communications that would have underscored her dishonesty, this blog wouldn’t even exist.
The organisation effectively ensured its failure in any potential tribunal case, had I chosen to pursue it. The investigations and processes were riddled with glaring contradictions—most notably, an email from the chair admitting I was denied access to critical files and emails necessary for my defence. Despite repeated requests for an explanation, including in my response to her inappropriate suspension email, no justification was ever provided.
These blatant failures exposed the process as fundamentally unjust and a textbook example of how not to conduct a disciplinary process. Despite my exhaustive efforts to document concerns and seek intervention regarding the chair’s unprofessional and toxic behaviour, the board wilfully turned a blind eye, actively enabling the dysfunction to persist unchecked, sacrificing their own reputations and the very integrity of the organisation itself, and for what?.
To add further insult, the suspension email concluded with the absurd statement: "This suspension is not a punishment." The entire ordeal was a blatant demonstration of the disarray and mismanagement entrenched within the organisation’s leadership. Frankly, the organisation should count itself fortunate that I chose not to escalate the matter further.
Lessons in Resilience
Quitting my role and walking away from an organisation I had loved so deeply was both heart-breaking and liberating. It forced me to confront hard truths—not just about the failures of appalling leadership, but about my own self-worth and the importance of establishing boundaries. The chair’s inappropriate behaviour and blatant abuse of power, actively supported and even admired by the board, were beyond redemption. Remaining in such an environment would have meant compromising my values and risking my reputation becoming inextricably tied to hers. In that moment of clarity, it became unmistakable: this organisation was no longer worthy of my dedication or loyalty.
Red Flags: Toxic behaviours—gaslighting, blame-shifting, and poor communication—must be recognised and addressed early and are signs of deeper issues.
Documentation: Keeping detailed records protected me and ensured clarity when the chair attempted to rewrite history.
Self-Value: No role, no matter how meaningful, is worth sacrificing your mental health or self-respect.
Know when to quit: Choosing to leave isn’t giving up or admitting defeat or guilt it’s choosing yourself and a sign of strength.
Redefining Workplace Values
This organisation’s experience is not unique. It serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when leadership prioritises control over collaboration and self-interest over accountability. To organisations everywhere: invest in your culture, value your people, and ensure your governance systems actively uphold fairness and accountability rather than enabling dysfunction—particularly if you proudly display commitments to staff welfare, governance, and leadership on your website. Real leadership earns respect through integrity, transparency, collaboration, and trust.
To those navigating similar situations: document everything, seek advice early, and know when it’s time to prioritise your wellbeing. Your worth isn’t tied to any one role, and stepping away from toxicity is a step toward empowerment. Together, we can create workplaces where respect and integrity are the norm, not the exception. Organisations can start by fostering open communication channels, implementing clear and fair governance processes, and holding leadership accountable for their actions. Individuals, on the other hand, can empower themselves by recognising early warning signs, building strong support networks, and never hesitating to prioritise their mental health and professional integrity over toxic environments. Share your experiences below or in the comments.
