How to handle toxic leaders? Try to work with them, or around them, or fire ’em all?

Recently all the officers and NCOs of a National Guard company deployed to Kosovo were fired, apparently for hazing and such. Some 17 officers and sergeants in all were given the big heave-ho. (Apparently Kosovo duty is now so boring that discipline is becoming an issue there.) For those of you keeping score at home, the hazed company is part of 3rd Squadron, 108th Cavalry Regiment.  

Meanwhile, Maj. Darren Buss wondered aloud about the issue of toxic leadership  in a Leavenworth interview reviewing his time as a member of a troubled advisory team in Iraq in 2008-09:

I tried to talk to the team chief a couple of times throughout the deployment but his attitude was kind of abrasive and standoffish. I tried to mitigate as best as I could. I would address things on the side and maybe not tell him the reason why but say, "Hey sir, can we try this instead?" Sometimes I succeeded but not frequently. Most of the time I was just doing some damage control. That’s one of the challenges that I keep wondering about.

Toxic leadership is one of these topics that is kind of a buzz in the Army right now. That’s a question that I keep asking; "If you have someone who appears to be a toxic leader and doesn’t listen, then what is your job as a subordinate if that officer won’t listen to you? Do you go external? Do you tell other people?" We debated that several times. I don’t know if I lacked the intestinal fortitude or I couldn’t figure out how doing so would solve the problem and whether it would cause us to lose space with our Iraqi counterparts and cause us mission failure. No. I never went external. Whether that was the right decision, I don’t know.

(HT to CB)