Wendy Edmonds

Wendy Edmonds

Wendy M Edmonds INTERIM CHAIR Dept of Management, Marketing & Public Administration

Phone 301-860-3622 wedmonds@bowiestate.edu

Main Campus Center for Business and Grad Studies, Room 2323-A

Education

Ph.D. Organizational Leadership, University of Maryland Eastern Shore

M.S. Marketing, Johns Hopkins University

B.S. Technology Management, Bowie State University

Areas of Expertise

Toxic Followership, Leader/Follower Interrelatedness, Organizational Leadership, Qualitative Research

Biography

Dr. Edmonds is an Assistant Professor in the College of Business at Bowie State University, the oldest Historically Black College and University in Maryland. She is Chair of the Followership Learning Community at the International Leadership Association – the largest followership research and practitioner group in the world. She is the first researcher to conduct focus group studies with survivors of the 1978 Jonestown Massacre that occurred in Guyana. It was that life changing event which fueled her interest in “toxic followership” and the various perspectives of leader-follower relationships.

Recognized internationally as a scholar-practitioner in followership, an emerging field of study in organizational leadership, Dr. Edmonds is the author of inTOXICating FOLLOWERSHIP scheduled for release in March 2021. Her most recent research focuses on the lived experiences of victims of domestic violence in relation to followership and the impact of spirituality.

Research Interests

  • Toxic Followership
  • Organizational Leadership
  • Diversity

Awards & Honors

  • 2019-2021 Chair of the Followership Learning Community at the International Leadership Association
  • 2020 Certificate of Appreciation Award - Presentation - Be a Courageous Follower, Not a Toxic Follower in a Time of Crisis, Universidad Autonoma Indigena de Mexico.
  • 2020-2021 Emerging Scholar and recipient of the Emerging Scholars Award Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
  • 2018 Idahlynn Karre Exemplary Leadership Award Organization: The Chair Academy Leadership

Personal Statement

Leaders and their leadership are often commented on, while little attention is paid to the followers who support and/or enable them. Much of what we think of as toxic leadership, however, is actually the product of toxic followership. Dr. Edmonds defines toxic followership as the actions of someone who, as a result of being manipulated by a trusted leader/authority, now exhibits unethical, destructive or disruptive behavior similar to that of the unscrupulous leader. Authoritarian rulers would be nothing without those who willingly follow, exchanging an ethical compass for a flawed human one. Followership is, in fact, one of the most pressing and least understood issues of our time.