Abstract: This research provided a review of the literature to identify and target the most important bad leadership definitions, behaviors, traits and misconceptions. Data gathered from this discovery process was analyzed to identify, via Pareto analysis of nearly four hundred (400) papers, the “vital few’ and “useful many” groupings of bad leadership be-haviors. Once grouped, the data was used to compile a list of bad leadership characteris-tics. These characteristics included definitions, behaviors, traits, and commonality be-tween behaviors and traits. In addition to the characteristics, a nomenclature for “bad leadership behavior” was created, containing the most relevant twenty-five (25) bad lead-ership behaviors.