This article was written by Susan Broomhall, Behavioural Scientist from Bright Research and Insights, with 30 years’ experience in government applying behavioural science to real-world issues. She’s the author of the books ‘Bullying & Harassment – Understanding the Psychological and Behavioural Tactics of the Toxic Leadership Stronghold’ and ‘The Art of Peace – Creating the Harmonic Humanity’.

  • The problem: Corruption and injustice continue to be significant global issues.
  • Why it matters: When governments fail to curtail corruption and injustice, it is the people who are adversely affected.
  • The solution: Understanding the many factors that enable corruption and injustice will enable change to create transparency and justice.

“Justice and the effective rule of law are essential for preventing and stopping corruption at both the national and international levels. Both are cornerstones of democracy and embody notions of fairness and accountability. Impunity for corruption — where people who abuse their power do not face consequences for the harm they cause — is the essence of injustice and failure of the rule of law.”
Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2023

Transparency International Australia have released the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), revealing that “124 countries have stagnated corruption levels, while the number of countries in decline is increasing”. In fact, the CPI reports “that most countries have made little to no progress in tackling public sector corruption”.

Corruption and injustice

Transparency International Australia, notes: “The 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released by Transparency International reveals that most countries have made little to no progress in tackling public sector corruption in more than a decade. What is more, over two-thirds of countries score below 50 out of 100, which strongly indicates serious corruption problems.

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“Governments are largely failing to stop corruption — over 80 per cent of the world’s population lives in countries with CPI scores below the global average of 43.

“The global trend of weakening justice systems is reducing accountability for public officials, which allows corruption to thrive. Authoritarian and also many democratic leaders undermining justice are increasing impunity for corruption, and even encouraging it by eliminating consequences for criminals."

In addition, François Valérian, Chair of Transparency International, has said: "Corruption will continue to thrive until justice systems can punish wrongdoing and keep governments in check. When justice is bought or politically interfered with, it is the people who suffer. Leaders should fully invest in and guarantee the independence of institutions that uphold the law and tackle corruption. It is time to end impunity for corruption."

Understanding Transparency International’s CPI

The CPI uses a scale from 0 to 100 where 100 is ‘very clean’ and 0 is ‘highly corrupt’. Data is aggregated from several different sources that capture perceptions among businesspeople and country experts of the level of corruption in the public sector. Transparency International undertakes data standardisation and analysis to then rank and report on the data findings. The index takes into consideration 180 countries and territories around the world. An emphasis is placed on justice systems tasked with detecting, investigating, prosecuting and adjudicating corruption cases with the assumption that a well-functioning justice system reduces the incidence of corruption. Using that assumption, where justice systems are lagging, corruption is more prevalent.

In my home country of Australia

Corruption is a global issue. In Australia, my home country, the corruption perception index score is currently 75 out of 100, the same as last year but a drop from 85 out of 100 ten years ago.

Unfortunately, Australia continues to lag in implementing the necessary changes to enhance transparency in public administration and reduce — or ideally eliminate — corruption from its systems.

To truly combat toxic leadership, we must first uncover how we are unwittingly complicit in sustaining it.

According to Transparency International, the views of the nine independent data sources and thousands of experts that contribute to Australia's CPI score align with recent polling by Transparency International Australia. This polling indicates that 76% of Australians believe corruption in government is a 'quite big' or 'very big' problem.

It’s a problem, so now what?

Corruption, injustice and toxic leadership are certainly not ‘new’ issues, nor are they necessarily not understood, so why has nothing changed?

As a behavioural scientist — having worked 30 years within these very same systems — I had a front-row seat to the machinations of hierarchical systems and time and space to observe and analyse the psychology and behaviours of leadership and those that enabled toxic systems and toxic cultures. “Toxic” refers to something harmful, similar to how corruption and injustice create harmful cultures, organisations and societies that impact every individual caught within the system. There are two main reasons why nothing has changed:

  1. Toxic leaders have established a stronghold that sustains the system, allowing them to thrive.
  2. Those ensnared within the system are psychologically unprepared to disentangle themselves from it.

My premise is that toxic leaders have dark personality traits that drive them to be the top dog. They use bullying and harassment as a strategy to manipulate people and circumstances to keep their top-dog position. Being devoid of empathy and having a competitive drive enables toxic leaders to create hierarchies that keep them in power and control at the cost of lower echelons who inadvertently become enablers of toxic leadership by submission. The cycle goes round and round, as history has shown.

Breaking the cycle requires more than just recognising that corruption, injustice and toxic leadership exist—though some continue to deny these issues due to a psychological inability to confront this truth. It also requires understanding how toxic leadership continue to get away with it. My research and analysis have revealed that the strategies of toxic leadership is complex and multi-layered and require unpicking and analysing each of the multitude of tactics used to create the web that ensnares us all.

Bullying and Harassment: Understanding the Psychological & Behavioural Tactics of the Toxic Leadership Stronghold, identifies over 170 different tactics used by toxic leadership.

The book identifies patterns and behaviours that reveal how seemingly innocuous actions and instructions are actually components of codes. These codes create algorithms that establish the perfect conditions for toxic leadership to thrive — essentially, illustrating how toxic leaders get away with their actions

To shift away from corruption, injustice and toxic leadership, we first need to examine how we might be enabling it.

The Global Corruption Barometer is a tool developed by Transparency International for checking the public’s lived experience of public sector corruption. Since its debut in 2003, the Global Corruption Barometer has surveyed the experiences of tens of thousands of people confronting corruption around the world.

Done reading? Make sure to share your own experiences or suggestions on how we can dismantle toxic leadership by leaving a comment below ⬇️