Looking Beyond the Toxic Triangle: Connecting Sexual Abuse to Failed Governance

The authors aim to further theoretical conceptualizations of sexual abuse in college sport by providing a wider framework to better identify and combat abuse within organizations. Building on the Toxic Triangle of Destructive Leadership, the authors offer an analysis of destructive leadership from an organizational perspective that reconceptualizes destructive leadership as a group and organizational phenomena by centering governing board actions in previous cases of abuse. Through analysis of the NCAA governance structure and the governance structure of higher education at large, the authors provide rationale for advancing governing boards as a sport governing body and demonstrate how governing boards are inseparable from the governance structure of the NCAA. In analyzing the literature on organizational responses to sexual abuse in intercollegiate athletics, the authors posit a new framework to better identify, prevent, and combat abuse in sport and call for enhanced proactivity from institutional leadership to address sexual abuse.