In this week's conversation between Dr. James Emery White and co-host Alexis Drye, they discuss the recent findings of the “Toxic Boss” survey from Harris Poll's Thought Leadership Practice. As the title of the article in Fast Company summarized, “6 in 10 workers say they have a toxic boss.” While the survey defined a toxic boss as someone who “exhibits harmful workplace behaviors, including unfair preferential treatment, lack of recognition, blame-shifting, unnecessary micromanagement, unreasonable expectations, being unapproachable, taking credit for others' ideas, acting unprofessionally, or discriminating against employees based on personal characteristics,” Dr. White explained there's so much more that could be added to the list.

One potential reason outlined for the rise in toxic bosses in the workplace is the shift in focus on employees as human beings and elevating the importance of AI. Church & Culture had an entire podcast devoted to this topic. We'd encourage you to go back and listen to CCP44: On Artificial Intelligence.

The conversation then shifted to how the church is not exempt from toxic leadership, something that is particularly glaring when you look at the seemingly unending string of pastors whose moral failings resulted in their removal from leadership within the church. Again, we'd encourage you to check out a couple of past podcast episodes, which take a deeper dive on this subject: CCP4: On Pastors and Moral Failings and CCP31: On Celebrity Pastors.

For those of you who are new to Church & Culture, we'd love to invite you to subscribe (for free of course) to the twice-weekly Church & Culture blog and check out the Daily Headline News - a collection of headlines from around the globe each weekday. We'd also love to hear from you if there is a topic that you'd like to see discussed on the Church & Culture Podcast in an upcoming episode. You can find the form to submit your questions at the bottom of the podcast page HERE.