It is a misinterpretation to believe that 110% loyalty to your toxic boss is a virtue - It is the Enemy of Workplace Ethics

Unfortunately, we see an increasing degree of Whistle-blow* cases regarding criticisable conditions in the workplace of toxics bosses. In occupational health psychology, much focus has been placed on the relationship between requirements for employees and their ability to have control over how the work is to be performed, whether the job is meaningful and whether one receives recognition that is in proportion to the effort one puts into the work. Such factors are, of course, possible for a leader to influence. Both national and international research shows that toxic bosses contribute to increased sickness absence, which costs society large financial sums every single year.

110% loyalty to your boss is not a virtue, even though it feels like the indispensable virtue. Technically, loyalty is neither virtue nor vice. It is simply a tendency, a temperament, a compulsion. But in practice, it fuels the worst movements and criminal acts in our human history, as well as much of the rot within ordinary offices today.

Time and time again, history repeats itself, and it does not seem that we humans have learned anything from history at all. Too often we see that Loyalty is what allows followers to overlook the crimes of their toxic bosses, but to spin them into acts of heroism and turn their company into a toxic, sycophantic moral workplace. It allows board members to tolerate or rationalize the bad behaviour of their toxic CEO. Loyalty is such a force for destruction because it readily clashes with genuine virtues such as honesty and fairness—all while seeing itself as superior to those virtues. Too often we see today that pride overrides the choice between admitting mistakes and showing integrity by addressing the actual issues.

Sometimes our values collide, making our daily lives more difficult. But prioritizing loyalty over integrity can come with consequences such as when people "look the other way" when observing shady operations in their workplace. Honouring a sense of loyalty to their boss or workplace may cause them to ignore, or even participate in, a variety of offenses. Of course, “security” also complicates this situation. If someone is afraid of losing the security of a job or a relationship, they may value that security above their own integrity.

The “loyalty bind,” as some psychologists call it, keeps the members of an organization from being able to see tumours metastasizing in their midst. It is what leads to scandals and cover-ups in politics, public-, private and NGO organizations today. If one person finally finds the courage to Whistle-blow and speak up and point out an injustice committed by a toxic boss, the loyalty bind is what causes angry followers to retaliate. Usually viciously by slamming the person’s motives or integrity, and they assert that the good of the organization involves unyielding loyalty to the hierarchy as it currently stands. If a toxic boss is allowed to ravage around as he pleases without interference from the board, he creates an environment of fear and that his behaviour is  the expected one. Think of organizations you have worked in, which disgruntled and disengaged employees kill many hours by talking about a toxic boss. Still if someone actual whistle-blow to take on the toxic boss, these cynics often seem shocked or torn, as though it is bad form to turn the disloyal complaining into disloyal action. Such is the pernicious power of loyalty.

To criticize loyalty in this way is not to say that all problems and conflicts must be dealt with in the most brutal and possible public way. They can often be better dealt with through processes offering some confidentiality and discretion. But loyalty is unfortunately the force that typically keeps critical actions from being dealt with at all. The challenge is to move organizations away from the notion of loyalty to a toxic boss and toward integrity and loyalty to the organization instead of to a specific person. Integrity includes the principles of transparency, accountability, and a constant readiness to reform in whatever way necessary—no matter whose personal interests may be affected.

It is something of a management cliché to state that good leaders inspire loyalty. Unfortunately, the reality is often the opposite and they often inspire the bad ones. Good leaders inspire principled behaviour, not loyalty or obedience.

In the choice where one need to choose between integrity and loyalty, one should choose integrity! Why? Integrity is something you spend an entire lifetime building and it is how people determine your character and reliability/dependability over time. It is also loyalty to yourself. If you sacrifice your own integrity to be loyal to toxic boss you have not only betrayed your own moral code, whatever that may be, but you’ve betrayed yourself and made yourself a stranger to everyone who think they knew you.

Standing by your own integrity, you will appreciate that your loyalty may have been misplaced in the other person, or people. Integrity is adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character, of being whole and true. It costs to vouch for one's own integrity and often come with a cost of retaliation from a toxic boss. Integrity takes strength of character and a firm commitment to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason even if this meaning to be disloyal to whistle- blow about criticisable conditions in the workplace of toxics bosses

*A whistleblower is a person who exposes secretive information or activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct. Whistleblowers, however, take the risk of facing stiff reprisal and retaliation from those who are accused or alleged of wrongdoing.