Here's an excellent book on the subject that explains and works through how insecure and damaging leaders of this type rise to to power, but more importantly perhaps, what it is about people and organizations that causes us to follow them.

http://www.amazon.com/Allure-Toxic-Leaders-Destructive-Politicians/dp/0195166345

There are three general problems with "troublesome" Christian media ministries:  They don't like self-restraint, they won't self-critique and they won't join in any independent overwatch organization.  This is a recipe for disaster. 

The fix?  Dedication to the imposition of self-restraint, which is what Abraham Lincoln talked about in the Gettysburg Address.

"What fascinates her is that people will continue to follow leaders, remain loyal to leaders, and vigorously resist change and challenges to leaders who have clearly violated the leader/follower relationship and abjectly abused their power as leaders to the direct detriment of the people they are leading. When we continue not only to tolerate leaders such as this, but to remain loyal followers (the book is full of examples of just this phenomenon), and when such people fascinate us through the media images they project, and we find them positively alluring, Lipman-Blumen suggests there is something of a deeply psychological nature going on and this is the place where her remarkably penetrating investigation takes off, in the central question of the book: What are the forces that propel followers, again and again, to accept, often favor, and sometimes create, toxic leaders?"

These are valid questions.  I've never read the book, but my interest is piqued.  Admittedly, the answer I most want is as follows:  How do we interact with these leaders and their sycophants productively?

Ideas?  Anyone!

'Cause Phil, I don't think these leaders or their followers know who they are.  In many cases, the rest of us have a bit of trouble figuring it out too!  You know they're a royal pain, but figuring out why can take a while.  Figuring out what to do about it, longer!

There's a sycophant of one of these fruitcake leaders trying to reach me right now. He will claim his call is social, but he'll be trying to manipulate me into revealing information his boss can use for one of his selfish agendas.  The sycophant isn't a bad guy, but he is weak and silly.  If he weren't, he wouldn't be an errand boy for a sociopath.   I wish he and I could be friends, but for that he'd have to have a bit more respect, both for himself and for me.

 These leaders are a nuisance at best, and their followers remind me of some of Shakespeare's more memorable tragic characters.  How do we deal with all this drama?  How do we interact with them in ethical, productive ways?  

This might describe one of your ministry leaders, which is sad. There is so much to do for God these days, and media has proven to be an effective tool when used properly. I like the "Good To Great" analogy: there are some people on the bus in the wrong seat. Get them into the right seat asap. Others can be trained and developed to someday be in another seat. But others shouldn't be on the bus at all. Be nice, but get them off that bus pronto!

Toxic leadership is a pretty harsh term.  It's a good description but then, there are many good people who have leadership weaknesses who may feel toxic in a given situation, but basically, if you can figure out how to get their attention and appeal to their better judgment to change things, you have a chance of succeeding.  They're not unreasonable, their just either blind to their own weaknesses or are reacting to a fear of a loss of control.

It's a risk to challenge a leader to reconsider their approach to issues.  You can make the appeal and be misunderstood and then you're on the outside looking in.  A good leader "should" receive this type of input and even if they don't use it, they'll go out of their way to praise the person giving it and explain why they don't agree with it or can't use it.  Their goal will be to not cut off the communication and they'll know they don't know it all and need that kind of input.  A basically good leader with a blind spot will probably try in the long run to listen and learn something.

There's those toxic type leaders however, that'll turn on you.  I learned a long time ago, even before I understand the academic models, that there's worse things than losing a job or moving on when you've got nowhere else to go in a situation and you can't respect or move an organization forward anymore.  That's happened once in my life.  I wish I knew what I know now and had enough wisdom to have done it sooner in that situation.  It would have saved me and the organization a lot of pain.  They didn't change, didn't want to change and have gone on to chew up my successors in the same way they did me.

either decide to incarnate Christ in the situation or find another place to serve