Abstract

In this exploratory study, educators as the employees in their respective organizations gave a clear indication of their perceptions of the causes of tobephobia (TBP) as it affects them in their working environment. Three hundred and eleven participants completed a structured questionnaire in this quantitative study. The findings indicate that the job performance of employees can be severely restricted when they experience job-training deficits. This will inevitably expose the employees to the effects of TBP, which is not necessarily restricted to any organization, whether it falls within the domain of the public or private sector. As the findings of this exploratory study strongly suggest, employers must not be complacent and evasive by ignoring problems that fester within their organizations. Lacking a supporting infrastructure and expecting employees to do the work that they are not trained to do can be detrimental in terms of organizational outputs. This study has further revealed that when an organization, like a school, is obsessed with a single goal at the expense of others, then it can plunge into trouble when things fail to work out. A culture of false assurance is typical of tobephobic leadership in organizations that fail to deliver promised outputs.