| Course | EDO 820 Ethical Issues in Leading Organizations |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 4 |
| Paper type | Doctoral followership analysis |
| Length | About 1,029 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Aspen University |
| Program | Doctor of Education |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for EDO 820 Module 4
The Finance Director Wrote Loan: Followers, the Toxic Triangle and Why No One Inside Stopped a Nonprofit Leader
Student Name
Doctor of Education Program, Aspen University
EDO 820: Ethical Issues in Leading Organizations
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
The Finance Director Wrote Loan: Followers, the Toxic Triangle and Why No One Inside Stopped a Nonprofit Leader
Kinloch's chief executive did not act alone. The finance director entered the transfer of $1.9 million in restricted funds as an interfund loan. The senior team learned of it at their next weekly meeting. The youth housing program director, whose program the grant funded, objected in writing and was left out of later discussions. The board chair heard within a week and told the full board three weeks after that. Anyone of them might have stopped or exposed the act sooner. This paper asks why none did. Every person and figure in the case is fictional.
The Toxic Triangle
Padilla et al. (2007) argued that destructive leadership cannot be explained by leaders alone. They proposed a toxic triangle of three elements. Destructive leaders tend to show charisma, a personalized need for power, narcissism, negative life themes and an ideology of hate. Susceptible followers include conformers, who comply out of unmet needs, low self-esteem or psychological immaturity, and colluders, who actively participate out of ambition or shared values. Conducive environments involve instability, perceived threat, cultural values that favor strong leaders and the absence of checks and balances and institutionalization. Destructive outcomes, in their view, emerge when the three combine, and they result in organizational outcomes that compromise the welfare of constituents.
Applying the triangle to Kinloch requires care. The chief executive had charisma and, as Module 3 showed, an increasingly personalized view of his authority, but no ideology of hate or pattern of exploiting others for personal gain. His act was a serious ethical failure, not a career of destruction. The environment, by contrast, fits closely: an acute threat, the payment delay, and the steady loss of checks described in Module 3. And the followers' roles are where the case is most instructive.
Conformers and Colluders
Thoroughgood et al. (2012) developed a taxonomy of the susceptible followers who enable destructive leaders. Conformers, who go along passively, include lost souls, who identify with the leader to fill personal needs; authoritarians, who defer to legitimate authority; and bystanders, who stay passive out of fear or self-interest. Colluders, who actively participate, include acolytes, who share the leader's goals and values, and opportunists, who cooperate for personal gain.
| Follower | Action | Type | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finance director | Recorded the transfer as a loan | Conformer, authoritarian | Deferred to the chief executive's authority; worried about her job |
| Senior team | Knew and said nothing | Conformers, bystanders | Saw the payroll crisis as justification and dissent as risky |
| Board chair | Waited three weeks to tell the board | Closer to colluder, acolyte | Shared the chief executive's view that the end justified the means; had recruited him |
| Program director | Objected in writing | Not susceptible | Acted as a check and was sidelined |
How Dissent Was Treated
The youth housing program director's treatment mattered beyond her own case. Tepper (2000) studied abusive supervision, the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behavior by supervisors, and found that subordinates who experienced it were more likely to leave and reported lower job and life satisfaction, lower commitment, more conflict between work and family and more psychological distress. These effects were explained largely by subordinates' perceptions of injustice.
The program director was not abused. But she was excluded from later discussions, described to the board as unfamiliar with finance and passed over for a committee she had expected to chair. Other managers saw what happened. Tepper's research shows how strongly employees respond to perceived injustice from those above them; at Kinloch, the visible cost of one person's dissent appears to have taught others that objecting was unwise. Several senior team members later admitted private misgivings and a fear of becoming the next person moved aside.
Was This Destructive Leadership?
The question matters for what Kinloch does next. If the chief executive were a destructive leader in Padilla, Hogan and Kaiser's sense, the board's task would be removal and repair. If he is a constructive leader who committed one serious failure in a conducive setting, the board's task is harder: deciding whether he can return under stronger checks. The evidence points toward the second reading. His fourteen years show growth, loyal staff and no prior misuse of funds, and the transfer served others rather than himself. But the earlier episodes noted in Module 3, the euphemisms and blamed funders, suggest a pattern that could have grown. The triangle's lesson holds either way: the followers and the environment allowed the act, and changing them protects the agency whatever the board decides about its leader.
Making Followers a Check
The analysis suggests that urging followers to be braver will not work while structures make dissent costly. Four changes would help. First, the finance director and her staff should have a protected right to report concerns about the use of restricted funds directly to the audit committee chair, with that right written into board policy. Second, any senior staff member's written objection to a significant financial or legal decision should be forwarded to the board's executive committee automatically. Third, the board should adopt a policy on the chair's duty to inform the full board of material events within a set number of days. Fourth, the board should train its members on their own role as followers of a successful executive, including the risk of becoming acolytes. None of these changes depends on any individual's courage. Each makes the right action the routine one, so that a finance director who doubts a transaction, or a program director who objects to one, reaches the people with authority to stop it without first having to defy the person they report to.
Conclusion
No one inside Kinloch stopped the chief executive because the people who could have done so deferred to his authority, shared his view or saw what happened to the one person who objected. Padilla, Hogan and Kaiser show that dysfunctional leadership needs followers and a conducive setting, Thoroughgood and colleagues distinguish the followers who conformed from the one who colluded and Tepper shows why the treatment of dissent shapes others' silence. Structures that protect and route dissent can make followers a check rather than a channel.
References
Padilla, A., Hogan, R., & Kaiser, R. B. (2007). The toxic triangle: Destructive leaders, susceptible followers, and conducive environments. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(3), 176-194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2007.03.001
Tepper, B. J. (2000). Consequences of abusive supervision. Academy of Management Journal, 43(2), 178-190. https://doi.org/10.5465/1556375
Thoroughgood, C. N., Padilla, A., Hunter, S. T., & Tate, B. W. (2012). The susceptible circle: A taxonomy of followers associated with destructive leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(5), 897-917. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.05.007
EDO 820 Module 4 instructions, in plain terms
Followers and toxic leadership are the focus of the fourth module of EDO 820, and the paper typically asks how followers and settings contribute to dysfunctional leadership and what can be done. Wherever this sample and your Module 4 instructions part ways, the instructions win; the nonprofit and its people are invented. Apply a framework that includes leaders, followers and environment. Classify the followers involved and explain their behavior. Consider how the leader's treatment of dissent affected others. Assess whether the leadership was destructive or a single failure. Propose changes that make followers a check on leaders, citing the followership research in APA 7 format.
How the EDO 820 Module 4 example is put together
Four groups of followers appear in the case: the finance director, who recorded the transfer as a loan; the senior team, who knew and said nothing; the youth housing program director, who objected and was sidelined; and the board chair, who learned within a week and waited three more before telling the board. Padilla, Hogan and Kaiser (The Leadership Quarterly) frame the case through leader, followers and environment, and the paper weighs whether Kinloch's leadership was destructive or one serious failure by an otherwise constructive leader. Thoroughgood and colleagues (The Leadership Quarterly) classify the finance director and senior team as conformers and the board chair as closer to a colluder. Tepper (Academy of Management Journal) explains how the sidelining of the program director, while not abuse, taught others the cost of dissent. Changes include a protected route for finance staff to reach the audit committee, written dissent for senior staff and board training on its own role.
Reading the EDO 820 Module 4 grading rubric
Followership papers earn credit when the framework is applied to each actor with evidence and the analysis avoids both excusing followers and blaming them alone. This example uses the toxic triangle to give followers and environment equal attention with the leader, and it judges carefully whether the case fits destructive leadership. The follower taxonomy is applied to named roles with reasons, distinguishing passive conformity from active collusion. Tepper's research is used with care, noting that the case falls short of abuse while still showing how treatment of dissent shapes silence. The changes address the specific follower behaviors identified, which gives the paper practical value.
Common EDO 820 Module 4 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Papers on toxic leadership often focus only on the leader's character. Give equal attention to followers and to the environment, since the toxic triangle holds that destructive outcomes need all three. Another weakness is classifying everyone as a victim or everyone as complicit; distinguish followers who conformed from those who colluded, with evidence. Be careful with labels: not every ethical failure makes a leader toxic or destructive. Consider how the treatment of one dissenter shaped others' behavior. Finally, propose specific structures that give followers safe ways to act, rather than urging them to be braver.
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EDO 820 Module 4 questions, answered
What does EDO 820 Module 4 usually ask for?
Aspen's EDO 820 covers followers and toxic leadership in this module, so analyzing how followers and settings contribute to dysfunctional leadership is typical. Check your Module 4 prompt.
What is the toxic triangle?
Padilla, Hogan and Kaiser's model in which destructive leadership arises from destructive leaders, susceptible followers and conducive environments together.
What kinds of followers enable destructive leaders?
Thoroughgood and colleagues described conformers, who go along passively, and colluders, who actively participate for their own reasons.
Where can I find a free EDO 820 Module 4 sample paper?
Free on this page: an analysis of why no one inside an invented nonprofit stopped its chief executive, using the toxic triangle.
What are the effects of abusive supervision?
Tepper found subordinates of abusive supervisors reported more psychological distress, less commitment and lower satisfaction, linked to perceived injustice.