Has toxic leadership affected your decision on staying or separating the military service?

When I served (1983 - 1990), all the leaders I encountered did what they were supposed to and got it right for the most part. The reason I left was the reenlisting department and non-promotions.
I jumped at the chance to join the Army after high school, and didn't give too much thought into what I wanted to do in the military, and later on became stagnant, and wanted a change in order to challenge myself and broaden my scope. I told the reenlistment officer I wanted to go Airborne/Special Forces if possible, or something more challenging than what I was doing. He stated that I had too much training behind me to waste it on lowering myself to being in those MOS's. I took that as an insult to the Airborne/Special Forces, and also to myself as they didn't care if I reenlisted or not. I was previously working in hydraulics, mechanics, electronics on HAWK missiles and Bradley Fighting Vehicles/Turrets. I was E-4 (promotable) and had 7 years under my belt.
The promotions were stagnant, there was no room for moving up, and nobody seemed to be pushing the soldiers to better themselves and further their military education and skills. When I was working on the HAWK systems, they phased it out, and I lost practically all of my promotion points when moving into the Bradley field. I was pretty much starting at zero promotion points as an E-3, which put me behind the current E-3's in the new unit.
I promoted to E-4, and since there were so many of us, there were very few promotions in the entire Brigade, and feeling as if I hit a dead end, THAT is why I left the service.
I regret it now, and think I should have toughed it out, but back then doing 12 more years in a never-ending drone state, doing something I didn't have a definite fire for, would have dragged me down big time.
I live to be challenged, and the Army prevented me from doing that. I wanted a Military career, constantly being challenged, and they just wanted a placeholder number in the unit.
So, in some minor ways it was the leaders, but mostly it was all the red tape and policies keeping me from staying in. If they would have let me advance into new territory, I would have stayed for the long haul.

Jones, What I'm gathering is that it wasn't the leaders treat or behavior towards you what made you take the decision, but the lack of support and advice on how to further your career. Does that sound about right?

SSG (Join to see) - Yes, that is right.

Sgt (Join to see) The conversation is about toxic leadership and how it affects soldier retention.

A soldier’s perception is his reality. Discipline only gets you so far. You have to buy into the program. A single toxic leader can ruin a good soldier and he will ETS.

The reality is a commander good or bad can charge and convict a soldier and put him a jail cell. That is a fact. Now put that power in the hands of someone who abuses it.

But the difference in the civilian world as opposed to the military is you can just leave a company if you want to if you have bad leadership. You can't exactly do that in the military.

SGT Chris Stephens - Leadership changes over time and you can expect to have new leadership. Sometimes you need to adapt and overcome and be resilient. Sometimes it is the subordinate that is the difficult party and likes to shift blame.

Sgt (Join to see) - You're absolutely right. However, even though leadership changes, if a young servicemember has had bad experiences with leadership (toxic or otherwise) at their first and second duty stations, it's absolutely going to affect them reenlisting.

Agree. Service members are likely to classify an "always yelling" leaders as toxic and not the one that doesn't provide direction or guidance. Toxic (counterproductive) leadership is not always the one that yells and screams all the time, but also those that don't help service members (and organizations) better themselves.

Thanks for your insight!