Leadership, Toxic Workplace Environment and Organizational Sustainability in the Post-Pandemic Era

Dear Colleagues,

The COVID-19 pandemic has disturbed the normal operations of organizations across the globe, and the compounded uncertainty and complexity caused by COVID-19 has resulted in rising unemployment, disrupted working schedules, and societal unrest, making it the worst time many employees have ever experienced. While many organizations continue fighting for survival through cutting costs, downsizing and lay-offs, employee well-being is becoming a big challenge. Meanwhile, the concept of a toxic workplace environment, which refers to the cruel and often violent treatment that jeopardizes employee safety and health, has also drawn increasing attention. However, although the issues involving employee well-being and organizational sustainability have been highly discussed amid the pandemic, limited research has been conducted at the intersections of employee well-being, the toxic workplace environment, and organizational sustainability.

Moreover, at such a crucial time, leaders are believed to play a vital role in dealing with the crisis, especially when achieving sustainable development is deemed a global consensus. For instance, evidence indicates that during COVID-19, supportive leaders could motivate their subordinates and improve the well-being of their employees as they helped them to overcome psychological fears of the disease and social isolation. In contrast, despotic leaders may have created a toxic workplace environment for their subordinates during the COVID-19 pandemic because they prioritized work at the cost of employee health and happiness, and failed to reduce fear among employees about contracting the contagious Coronavirus in the workplace. As such, it seems particularly meaningful to more comprehensively investigate the role of different leadership styles and behaviors in affecting employee well-being and organizational sustainability, as well as in avoiding the formation of a toxic workplace environment in the post-pandemic era.

This Special Issue (SI) focuses on leadership toxic workplace environments and organizational sustainability in the post-pandemic era. Moreover, the published research will bridge the gap between the toxic workplace environment, employee well-being, and job satisfaction. We welcome papers with theoretical and empirical contributions that address important issues and challenges about business leaders and the intersections of the toxic workplace environment and sustainability at the individual, organizational, and industrial levels. Empirical research, literature review, case studies, and papers focusing on theoretical development as well as conceptual models are all welcome. This Special Issue (SI) therefore seeks novel insights, new knowledge, and encourages—but not necessarily limits—the scope to studies that explore, examine or theorize:

• Leadership;
• Supportive leadership;
• Employees well-being;
• Organizational sustainability;
• Sustainable work performance;
• COVID-19;
• Despotic leadership;
• Toxic workplace environment;
• Workplace violence;
• Job satisfaction; 
• Employee turnover;
• Workplace harassment;
• Workplace bullying;
• Employee engagement.

Dr. Samma Faiz Rasool
Prof. Dr. Tachia Chin
Dr. Muhammad Zaheer Asghar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• leadership
• supportive leadership
• employees well-being
• organizational sustainability
• sustainable work performance
• COVID-19
• despotic leadership
• toxic workplace environment
• workplace violence
• job satisfaction
• employee turnover
• workplace harassment
• workplace bullying
• employee engagement.