the Consequences of Toxic Leadership in Sport Teams: Mediation Role of Unit Civility

In recent years, leadership studies have been expanded and new leadership models have been presented by scholars that one of these models is toxic leadership. Contrary to positivist leadership styles, toxic leadership emphasizes the negative aspects of a leader. The popularity of the dark leadership vision has led to the development of a toxic leadership model. The present study seeks to investigate the consequences of toxic leadership with an emphasis on mediation role of unit civility. This is a applied and descriptive study and has been performed by survey method. For this purpose, a sample of 210 sports athletes in Semnan were randomly selected. Data were collected with questionnaire and analyzed using structural equation modeling in Smart-Pls software. Findings show that, toxic leadership has a significant relationship with organizational cynicism and Intention to Leave. There was a negative and significant relationship between toxic leadership, organizational trust and unit civility. In addition, the unit civility has a negative and significant relationship with organizational cynicism and Intention to Leave. Also, there was a significant relationship between unit civility and organizational trust.