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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
This friendly, compassionate guide is the antidote to workplace toxicity
Toxic workplaces can be bad for your mental and physical health, and they're one of the leading causes of employee turnover. Navigating a Toxic Workplace For Dummies explores what causes work environments to turn sour, and what you—as an employee, manager or leader—can do about it. You'll learn why people engage in toxic behavior like bullying, harassment, exclusion, and disrespect at work. More importantly, you'll gain the tools and skills to counter that behavior with positivity. Every individual, at every level of an organization, can make a difference in detoxifying the workplace. Don't let the stress of your job environment weigh you down. Let this Dummies guide teach you to support yourself and the people around you.
- Discover the signs and symptoms of a toxic workplace
- Learn why people do toxic things, and how to protect yourself
- Get advice on reporting harassment and other behaviors to HR
- Understand how to make organizational change as a manager, HR or leader
- Lead your organization in a detoxification campaign
Navigating a Toxic Workplace For Dummies is a must for anyone who has dealt with or is currently dealing with a toxic situation at work, as well as managers and leaders committed to resolving toxic situations.
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Seitenzahl: 580
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Navigating a Toxic Workplace For Dummies®
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: Getting Started with Navigating Toxic Workplaces
Chapter 1: Recognizing a Toxic Workplace and Its Consequences
Defining the Prevalence of Toxicity in the Workplace
Understanding the Damage and Consequences of Toxic Workplaces
Chapter 2: Identifying Toxic Behaviors
How Organizations Often Handle Toxic Behavior
The Types and Severity of Toxic Behavior
Conflict as a Toxic Phenomenon
Conflict Management Styles
Chapter 3: Understanding How Toxic Workplaces Come to Exist
Examining Organizational Culture
Defining Your Organization’s Culture
Identifying Why People Engage in Toxic Behavior
Exploring Why People Become Targets of Toxic Behavior
Discovering the Role of Witnesses
Chapter 4: Examining Legal and Ethical Implications
Understanding the Global Legal Landscape of Toxic Workplaces
Reviewing the Countries Whose Laws Go Beyond Harassment
Examining Employers’ Obligations to Address Toxic Behavior
Part 2: Recognizing Everyone’s Roles and Responsibilities
Chapter 5: Embracing Your Role in Cultivating Positivity at Work
Committing to a Respectful Work Culture
Exploring How You Can Contribute to a Positive Culture
Building Up Your Personal Positive Brand
Chapter 6: Engaging in Opportunities for Positive Influence
Becoming a Psychologically Safe Space
Creating a Positive Team Environment
Building a Positive Culture with Team Exercises
Chapter 7: Creating a Respectful Work Culture: A Manager Superpower
Focusing on What You Want, Rather Than What You Don’t
Addressing Toxic Behavior Early On
Applying Best Practices in Taking Complaints
Part 3: Strategies for Targets and Witnesses
Chapter 8: Building Personal Resilience
Developing Resilience
Prioritizing Self-Care
Employer’s Role in Addressing Burnout
Chapter 9: Adopting Effective Communication Strategies
Recognizing Why Speaking Up Is Difficult
Identifying Passive, Assertive, and Aggressive Language and Behaviors
Implementing Tools for Effective Communication
Chapter 10: Leveraging Your Human Resources Department
Understanding the HR Landscape
Assessing HR’s Ability to Help You
Setting HR Up for Success
Filing Your Complaint with HR
Chapter 11: Finding and Being an Ally at Work
Defining Bystanders, Upstanders, and Allies
Assessing Upstander and Allyship Readiness
Standing Up Against Toxic Behavior
Reporting Toxic Behavior to HR Together
Chapter 12: Navigating Remote and Hybrid Toxic Environments
Recognizing Toxicity in Remote Work Settings
Setting and Sticking to Boundaries
Chapter 13: Navigating the Possibility You’ll Need to Exit
Exploring the Ideal Outcome of Filing a Complaint
Determining Whether to Stay or Go
Preparing to Leave
Preparing for Job Interviews
Time to Go: Managing the Transition Period
Part 4: Strategies for Managers and Human Resources
Chapter 14: Addressing Team Conflict Head-On
Looking at Conflict Through the DiSC Model
Managing Conflict Within Your Team
Chapter 15: Setting the Team Up for Success
Developing Workforce Interpersonal Skills
Leaning on the Performance Management System
Coaching as a Key Management Skill
Chapter 16: Advocating for Positive Change
Exemplifying Positive Behaviors
Building a Case for Culture Change
Engaging Employees in Positive Change
Chapter 17: Assessing Your Workplace Culture
Gauging Leadership’s Readiness for a Culture Assessment
Identifying Tools for Assessing Workplace Culture
Deploying a Climate Assessment
Addressing the Survey Results
Chapter 18: Coaching Leaders Who Engage in Workplace Bullying
Understanding Why People Engage in Workplace Bullying
Motivating Leaders Who Bully to Change
Coaching Leaders Who Bully
Part 5: Strategies for Leaders and the C-Suite
Chapter 19: Seeing Culture as a Competitive Advantage
Defining the Need to Craft a Positive Work Culture
Understanding the Costs of Toxic Workplace Practices
Reviewing the Benefits of Positive Workplace Practices
Chapter 20: Leading Through Culture (Or Any) Change
Preparing for and Making Change
Navigating Resistance to Change
Part 6: The Part of Tens
Chapter 21: Ten Myths About Toxic Workplaces
Myth: Culture Comes from the Top
Myth: Money Makes Toxicity Tolerable
Myth: You Just Need to Toughen Up
Myth: HR Will Make It Worse
Myth: Your Workplace Is Just as Challenging as Everyone Else’s
Myth: Just Quit if You’re So Unhappy
Myth: Complaining Will Certainly Get You Fired
Myth: Work Stress Is Normal; Toxicity Is Just a Label
Myth: Workplace Bullying Is Lawful Behavior, So Nothing Can Be Done
Myth: Toxic Workplaces Can’t Change
Chapter 22: Ten Strategies for Speaking Up Against Toxic Behavior
Ask for Clarification
Redirect the Individual
Highlight the Impact
Lean On Core Values
Restate Their Comment Back
Express Your Feelings
Challenge the Stereotype
Point Out Commonalities
Set Boundaries
Quote Company Policy
Chapter 23: Ten Activities for Leaders to Create a Positive Work Culture
Model Positive Behavior
Engrain Core Values into Communication
Set Behavioral Expectations During Onboarding
Coach People Engaging in Disruptive or Toxic Behavior
Check In Regularly with Your Team
Foster a Psychologically Safe Environment
Ask for Feedback and Take It Seriously
Create Team Agreements
Seek to Understand Employees’ Unique Needs
Reward Behaviors That Promote a Positive Culture
Index
About the Author
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 1
TABLE 1-1 Tough Versus Toxic Behaviors
Chapter 2
TABLE 2-1 Toxic Behaviors
TABLE 2-2 Harassment Versus Workplace Bullying
TABLE 2-3 TKI’s Five Conflict Styles
TABLE 2-4 Hammer’s Four Conflict Styles
Chapter 3
TABLE 3-1 Windows Into Culture
TABLE 3-2 Actions for Influencing Culture Change
TABLE 3-3 Actions for Creating a Culture of Respect
TABLE 3-4 Example of Misalignment in Creating a Culture of Inclusivity
TABLE 3-5 Risk Factors in Organizational Behavior
Chapter 5
TABLE 5-1 Three Areas of Commitment
TABLE 5-2 Positive Influence Assessment
TABLE 5-3 Personal Branding Exercise
Chapter 6
TABLE 6-1 Trust-Building Behaviors
Chapter 8
TABLE 8-1 Competency: Managing Team Burnout
Chapter 9
TABLE 9-1 Communication Styles and Behaviors
Chapter 10
TABLE 10-1 Example Costs of a Toxic Workplace
Chapter 12
TABLE 12-1 Remote and Hybrid Challenges
Chapter 14
TABLE 14-1 The DiSC Model
Chapter 15
TABLE 15-1 The ADDIE Model
TABLE 15-2 Core Value Competency Matrix
Chapter 17
TABLE 17-1 Tips for Writing Survey Questions
TABLE 17-2 Example Six-Month Action Plan
Chapter 20
TABLE 20-1 Phases of Change and Resulting Emotions
TABLE 20-2 Actions for Each Phase of Change
TABLE 20-3 Leader Self-Evaluation Scorecard
TABLE 20-4 Employee Leader Evaluation Scorecard
List of Illustrations
Chapter 2
FIGURE 2-1: The toxic behavior spectrum, demonstrating how subtle behaviors can...
FIGURE 2-2: Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument describes how you may resol...
FIGURE 2-3: Hammer’s Intercultural Conflict Style Model describes how you may r...
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3-1: The three facets of organizational culture.
FIGURE 3-2: Roles witnesses play in a toxic workplace culture.
FIGURE 3-3: Moving from reinforcer to ally.
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: The iceberg model.
Chapter 14
FIGURE 14-1: The DiSC Model, which can be a good indicator of each team member’...
Chapter 15
FIGURE 15-1: The employee lifecycle starts before an individual joins the organ...
Chapter 20
FIGURE 20-1: What change can feel like if it’s not done in a methodical and sys...
FIGURE 20-2: A simple model of methodical change management.
FIGURE 20-3: What making change with appropriate change management processes an...
FIGURE 20-4: The seven steps to turning around a toxic work culture.
FIGURE 20-5: Various environments that can influence the success of change.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Begin Reading
Index
About the Author
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Navigating a Toxic Workplace For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
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Introduction
Toxic workplaces are more common than many people realize. Whether it’s an environment filled with gossip, bullying, overwork and underpay, unrealistic expectations, racism, sexism, ageism, entitlement, or poor leadership, a toxic culture can make anyone feel drained, undervalued, and anxious about coming to work. Unfortunately, many organizations fail to recognize the signs of workplace toxicity until morale is low, turnover is high, and productivity is suffering. With the right strategies, however, individuals, managers, and leaders can take meaningful steps toward creating a healthier, more respectful workplace intolerant of toxic behavior.
This book can help anyone at any level of the organization identify, address, and navigate toxic workplace behaviors and culture. From subtle signs of dysfunction to outright harassment, this book explores the different ways toxicity manifests and what you can do about it. Whether you’re dealing with a difficult boss, a team riddled with negativity, or an organization resistant to change, this book provides actionable solutions.
Navigating a toxic workplace isn’t just about survival — it’s about reclaiming your power and creating a path forward. You can influence your work environment in a meaningful way, no matter your level or role. You have the right to work in a place that cares about your dignity — and you have the responsibility to make that clear to those around you.
Creating a healthy workplace isn’t just the responsibility of leadership — it’s a collective effort that requires awareness, accountability, and action from everyone.
About This Book
We spend so much time at work — it should be a place where people feel valued, respected, and safe. Navigating Toxic Workplaces For Dummies will equip you with the knowledge and tools to recognize toxicity, respond effectively, and advocate for a healthier workplace. Whether you’re looking to improve your current situation within your own team or transform an entire organization, this book will serve as your guide to making work better for yourself and those around you.
If you picked up this book, it means you took two really hard and probably emotionally charged steps: You first had to admit you’re in over your head, and then you had to take the time to locate and purchase a resource to help you. (A pretty good one, I may add!)
Now that you’ve done that, keep going. Don’t leave this book on a shelf or sitting on your desk. Make sure you use it. It’s easy to reference and use, offering practical advice, tools, exercises, and assessments. You’ll find expert insights, real-world examples, and step-by-step strategies to help you respond to workplace toxicity with confidence. You’ll also explore how organizations can take a proactive approach to preventing toxicity before it takes root and turning it around once it does.
You’ll find information on:
What working in a toxic environment even means and how they come to exist
How individual contributors can take ownership and power over their immediate team culture to influence it in a positive way, including building resilience, becoming a safe space for peers, and creating a team of allies to stand up to toxic behavior
Building your communication skills, including becoming assertive, speaking up when you witness toxic behavior, addressing conflict, giving feedback, and sharing your solutions
Actions managers can take toward building a positive and thriving work culture in spite of any larger toxic workplace culture around them, including tackling team conflict head-on, advocating for a better work culture to leaders, and coaching team members engaging in toxic behavior
How to lead a team or entire workforce through a culture shift, because, even when change is good, it’s hard to do it successfully without the right principles and strategies in place
I encourage you to write in this book, highlight passages, earmark important pages, and share what you’re discovering with others. While there are many books out there on various components of toxic environments, like dealing with workplace bullying, coaching your team to be better, or turning around culture (called organizational development), to my knowledge, this is the only book that provides a comprehensive set of instructions for each and every member of a business, no matter their level, to navigate and ultimately turn around a toxic workplace.
Foolish Assumptions
In writing this book, I’ve made some assumptions about you, the reader:
You’re holding this book because you want to take your power back, so you’re looking for real, tangible, actionable advice to improve your situation. You recognize that you will have some work to do yourself.
Millions of people all around the world work in toxic workplaces. You’re not alone. So not alone, in fact, that over the last two decades, I’ve researched the topic, published tons of articles, and helped over 250 organizations make change. This book is a culmination of everything I know.
You may be an employee, supervisor, team lead, manager, department head, executive, top leader in the chief executive suite, consultant, training facilitator, internal, external, in human resources, a psychologist, union representative, or in any other role, and you’re looking for information and tools.
No matter who you are, this book is useful for you.
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout this book, icons in the margins highlight certain types of information that are called out for your attention. Here are the icons you’ll see along the way and a brief description of each.
The Tip icon highlights practical advice for putting strategies into action.
The Remember icon marks information that’s especially important to know.
The Technical Stuff icon marks information of a highly technical nature that you can typically skip over.
The Exercise icon appears next to any exercises or self-assessments you can do to build your abilities to navigate and even turn around your toxic workplace.
The Case Example icon highlights real stories from my work as a consultant, demonstrating how toxic behaviors come to exist and how companies everywhere have successfully turned them around.
Beyond the Book
Check out this book’s online Cheat Sheet for even more tips on navigating a toxic workplace. Just go to www.dummies.com and search for “Navigating a Toxic Workplace For Dummies Cheat Sheet.” The Cheat Sheet includes a few helpful tips from this book, as well as some additional ones. I encourage you to download them and share them with the people you work with as you seek support to create a better workplace culture.
Where to Go from Here
I hope you find this book simple but powerful, and I hope that you feel empowered while you read it and long after. I made it fun at times to lighten the mood, but I recognize that you may be feeling fairly beaten down by your situation.
This book is not meant to be read from cover to cover. Jump around, peruse the table of contents, and decide what may be most impactful for you. No matter what, be sure to take care of you. It’s clear that toxic workplaces can cause dramatic mental, psychological, and physical damage — so keep track of how you’re feeling and what you need, and respond to your gut accordingly.
Part 1
Getting Started with Navigating Toxic Workplaces
IN THIS PART …
Discover the prevalence of toxic workplaces and the damage they cause.
Find out whether you are working in or managing a toxic workplace culture.
Explore a variety of toxic behaviors and discover how toxic behaviors intertwine and escalate.
Identify your conflict management style.
Discover why people engage in toxic behavior, why some people become targets, and how witnesses play an active role in creating a toxic culture with their inaction.
Look at the global legal landscape of toxic workplaces, including workplace bullying and harassment, and read about employers’ moral and ethical responsibility to create environments where people grow and thrive.
Chapter 1
Recognizing a Toxic Workplace and Its Consequences
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding the prevalence of toxic workplaces
Discerning between toxic and tough people and behavior
Outlining the damage and consequences of toxic behavior
Welcome to the first step in navigating yourself, your team, or your organization through a toxic work environment. You may be reading this book because you personally feel like you’re working on a toxic team or for a toxic boss or because you have a friend or family member who does. You may be here because you’re a manager or human resources (HR) professional in a toxic work environment and you seek to drive positive change where you can. Or, you may be here because you’re a top leader in an organization with a toxic work culture, and you want to understand what needs to happen to turn it around.
No matter who you are and where you fall in your organization, this book is for you. It can help you understand how and why company culture evolves into a toxic situation, why people engage in toxic behavior, and most importantly, what to do about it. The journey begins in this chapter as you jump right into understanding the prevalence of toxic workplaces and the damage they cause.
Defining the Prevalence of Toxicity in the Workplace
Toxic behavior is a pattern of behavior and communication that hurts other people. It disrupts relationships and organizational functioning. Chapter 2 breaks down a long list of behaviors that people may consider toxic, including incivility or annoying behavior that drains energy, all the way up to harassment and violence. Some could argue that the word toxic is a little strong for uncivil behavior, and if they’re referring to a one-time offense, then they may be right. But ongoing patterns of incivility from one person on a team seep into other people’s patterns of behavior as they subconsciously learn it’s acceptable to be uncivil. Incivility begets more incivility, and over time, that behavior evolves and escalates into something worse.
You may be working in or managing a toxic workplace culture if
There’s high turnover all around you.
You can’t sleep at night because you dread going to work.
You or others don’t feel safe to share your thoughts and ideas because you worry about being persecuted, made to feel stupid, or that someone will steal credit.
Internal communication is not working, so you don’t always get the right information on time to do your job, you feel confused about goals or who’s supposed to be doing what, you don’t receive feedback often enough or rarely receive positive feedback, or when you share ideas with leaders to make improvements in the work or culture, you have no idea what happens to them.
You observe cliques, favoritism, or exclusion so that there’s a group of “cool kids” versus not, or a group of individuals who seem to work at ostracizing others through gossip, hazing, or avoiding.
You’re burned out by long hours, unrealistic expectations, glorification of the people who run themselves ragged with no concern for their well-being, and just generally dealing with a negative vibe all day, every day.
You feel micromanaged, bullied, and blamed for problems that aren’t your fault or where you haven’t been given the chance to suggest or implement solutions.
In short, if it feels like you’re in a toxic work culture, you probably are.
Discerning toxic from challenging behavior
When I started my consulting business over 15 years ago, I was shocked at how many people told me there wasn’t a market for consulting in the realm of workplace bullying and creating positive, thriving workplaces. Back then, harassment had started to gain some traction, but it seemed people believed that was where toxic behavior ended.
As I explored the content and information about workplace bullying available online, I came across some forums and articles in which HR professionals were seriously pushing back that bullying even existed. They said things like, “This is a fad that will fade away, just like diversity and inclusion,” and, “Just because someone’s boss yells at them, it doesn’t make the boss a bully. It’s usually an underperforming employee filing the complaint anyway.”
Thankfully, these days, identifying toxic behavior is not such an uphill battle — but we still have a long way to go. Diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, has taken a beating over the last few years as many organizations report it hasn’t made much difference in their business or bottom line. Women still make less than men, and people of color are hard to find among the top ranks of businesses. People who have a disability, are gay or transgender, are immigrants, or are over 50 all struggle to find themselves in a welcoming environment where they’re accepted and valued.
The comments from those HR professionals do highlight something important, however. Everyone has various tolerance levels for toxic behavior, and you can work with a challenging boss who drives you nuts, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your boss is toxic. Review Table 1-1 to get some clarity on the differences between tough and toxic boss behavior.
TABLE 1-1 Tough Versus Toxic Behaviors
Tough Boss
Toxic Boss
Has high expectations but provides coaching using goals and rewards
Gives credit when it’s due
May motivate with “tough love” but doesn’t cross the line into abuse
When work or tasks change, explains why the change is occurring
Offers constructive feedback
Has high expectations and “freaks out” when people don’t meet them with yelling or shaming
Takes credit for others’ ideas and work product
“Motivates” with arbitrary and punitive punishment, abuse, and fear
Assigns work or task changes without explanation, causing confusion and fear
Offers criticism, insults, and humiliation
Of course, toxic bosses aren’t the only reason people may feel like they’re in a toxic work culture. It’s safe to say that most people have either worked in, currently work in, or will work in a toxic environment at some point in their lives.
For example, the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) has been monitoring civility for a few years and states that 58 percent of U.S. workers believe society is uncivil and that workers collectively experience 223 million acts of incivility each day. (See www.shrm.org/topics-tools/topics/civility for more information.) The American Psychological Association’s (APA) 2023 Work in America survey found that 22 percent of employees experienced harassment in the 12 months prior to the survey, and 19 percent described their workplace as toxic. And 38 percent of women reported sexual harassment and 38 percent of LGBTQ+ members faced physical, verbal, or sexual harassment. (See www.apa.org/pubs/reports/work-in-america/2023-workplace-health-well-being for more information). In fact, research from all around the world over the last 40 years on topics like workplace bullying, abusive conduct, sexual harassment, and more all point to one thing — toxicity is a real problem.
Toxic behavior can range from ongoing incivility to workplace violence and everything in between.
Understanding how to positively influence your workplace
A company’s top leadership team is responsible for creating a positive work environment in which people can thrive. Unfortunately, CEOs and their executive teams often ignore the problem, believe it’s not that bad without any data to back up that belief, or even in spite of survey data that says otherwise, don’t want to confront a valued employee who engages in bullying because they’re conflict avoidant, or get distracted by other priorities like earning revenue or building the customer base. Indeed, many studies can be found online that show employers are out of touch with the workplace culture. The 2023 APA survey found, for example, that 77 percent of respondents in a toxic workplace agreed that their employer believed the workplace was healthier than it actually was.
Thankfully, the ol’ cliché that culture comes from the top is only partly true. You have the ability to influence the world around you. You don’t have to wait for leadership to declare they’ll make change before you do anything about it. You can influence your team, and you get to control your narrative. You get to decide how to react and respond to the toxicity around you.
The most important step you can take in that endeavor is to start working on your self-talk and resilience. You get to decide how you want to react to the situation you’re in, as no one is responsible for your happiness but you. Once you decide to take control, you can prioritize your self-care, mental health, and well-being and develop a plan to overcome the challenge your toxic workplace presents. Review Chapter 8 for more ideas on developing resilience.
The second important step to take is to embrace your power and opportunity to influence your situation. You have to start by developing self-awareness and emotional intelligence and addressing your unconscious biases. Chapter 5 will help you do that. Chapter 6 provides tools for building trust in the people around you, leaning on core values, and recognizing people who exemplify positivity — whether you’re a manager or an individual contributor. And if you’re a manager or in HR, Chapter 7 offers even more tips and ideas for developing a proactive mindset and implementing change.
The remainder of this book is focused on specific tools you can implement based on your level in the organization. Part 3 provides many tools for targets and witnesses of toxic behavior, and Parts 4 and 5 provide tools for managers, leaders, and HR professionals to make a real and long-lasting culture change.
Understanding the Damage and Consequences of Toxic Workplaces
Successfully navigating a toxic workplace culture is important to your personal health and well-being. It is clear that for people, damage and consequences include:
Chronic stress and anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem
Burnout and emotional exhaustion
Physical health issues such as headaches, high blood pressure, and digestive problems
Sleep disturbance, insomnia, and chronic fatigue
Loss of motivation, disconnection from work, and reduced loyalty to the organization and its mission
Strained personal relationships due to constant venting, depression, and feelings of isolation
Reduced ability to engage in positive parenting due to distractions, anxiety, depression, and fatigue
Higher risk of substance abuse, thoughts of suicide, and death by suicide
Career stagnation as people stop caring about growing, taking on more challenging tasks, or quitring to avoid the workplace
Burnout and emotional exhaustion
And when you have a group of workers feeling all of this, it certainly hinders their ability to do their best work. So for the organization, damage and consequences include:
Reduced productivity and quality of work, less innovation, poor customer service, and poor collaboration
Increased presenteeism, which means people are at work physically but not mentally, and absenteeism, which means they call in sick
High turnover, which is expensive as time is wasted training new people who in turn leave, and causes the organization to lose out on knowledge
Poor reputation within the community and industry and higher numbers of customer complaints that detract from business growth
Ineffective or strained relationships and communication, making it difficult for people to get their work done efficiently
Higher healthcare and workers’ compensation costs as the workforce develops stress-related illnesses
Legal and compliance risks for hostile work environment, discrimination, and wrongful termination
Wasted time on damage control, counseling employees, coaching managers, and addressing conflicts
Declining financial performance
Also, consider the domino effect of working in a positive versus toxic environment. When people feel good at work, are appropriately challenged, and are growing and thriving, they go home to their families with positive vibes. They have more positive interactions with their friends and family, and their friends and family take that out into your community.
Conversely, when people feel negative at work due to their environment, they take that home to their friends and families where they complain and vent or disappear into bed due to depression. And their friends and family then take that negativity out into your community, too.
When you think of it that way, you can see why it’s every employer’s moral and ethical responsibility to create an environment that supports its people. And it’s up to each person to push back on toxic behavior to create a culture where toxic behavior can’t thrive.
Chapter 2
Identifying Toxic Behaviors
IN THIS CHAPTER
Examining the organizational paradigm of toxic behaviors
Understanding various levels and types of toxic behaviors
Identifying your conflict management style
If you’re going to read a book about navigating toxic workplaces, it’s important to be on the same page (pun intended) when it comes to what, exactly, toxic behaviors are and how they contribute to or create toxic workplace cultures. For example, some people may not consider incivility — like gossip or rude jokes at a person’s expense — toxic. Lots of people gossip, and joking around with coworkers makes work more fun. Let’s just be adults and not be so sensitive, right? But, those behaviors can hurt other people’s feelings, especially when the behaviors start to get out of hand.
Toxic behavior is any pattern of behavior and communication that hurts other people and disrupts psychological safety. Psychological safety is the belief that you can speak up for yourself or others, share ideas, or disagree — be your whole and true self — without fear of consequences or retaliation. You need to feel safe to be your best and brightest self.
In this chapter, you identify a variety of toxic behaviors ranging from subtle and perhaps not so hurtful to overt and potentially life-altering for targets at the receiving end. You find out how toxic behaviors intertwine and escalate, discover that some behaviors are toxic even if you hadn’t thought about them that way before, and identify your conflict management style so you can adjust and adapt it as needed.
How Organizations Often Handle Toxic Behavior
An organization reached out to my consulting firm for assistance with a sticky situation. The CEO explained that the top producer in sales, who brought in a few million dollars each year, had gotten the organization into some legal trouble.
Over the last several years, women had been complaining to the CEO about this salesperson’s “creepiness.” He sometimes lingered too long when hugging a client or stared at women a little oddly while talking to them. Women just got what they called “a creepy vibe” from him — behavior that is not unlawful or a violation of any specific corporate policy.
The CEO handled it the way many organizations handle behavior that’s hard to define and not against any corporate policy — by brushing it aside. The CEO wasn’t obligated to address it, and the guy brought in a lot of money, so they figured it was fine.
After several years, some women grew sick of being oogled and having their complaints ignored, so they filed a formal hostile work environment complaint. That phrase — hostile work environment — escalates the situation to potentially unlawful behavior, so, as required by law, a workplace investigation was done.
The investigator reported that unlawful sexual harassment had occurred based on the information gathered in their interviews. Unfortunately, the newbie investigator failed to interview the alleged perpetrator of creepiness, meaning the investigation results would be considered biased in a court of law.
Now the CEO’s hands were tied — the CEO couldn’t fire this person due to the biased investigation. Even though all the women wanted him out, the CEO couldn’t fulfill their request. As a result, the CEO lost all trust and credibility as the rumor mill swirled. The stark realization that when the CEO retired later in the year, people would remember the CEO for this instead of the 25 years of good work the CEO had done greatly troubled the CEO. Creepiness is subtle and hard to identify and explain. None of the managers nor the CEO had any knowledge or training on how to deal with creepiness, and eventually, the behavior blew up in their faces.
Even if the investigator hadn’t made the mistake of leaving out the one person they absolutely needed to interview, and the employer had been able to fire the creepy guy, this story highlights a common problem with the way organizations understand and address toxic behavior. Because harassment and discrimination are unlawful behaviors according to federal and, in some cases, state law, employers everywhere have come to see other toxic behaviors, such as creepiness, incivility, or unprofessionalism, as a nonissue. It seems the law doesn’t require them to address it, so, they just don’t.
Unfortunately, this is the story of many employers across the nation and the world. While the law is, of course, extremely important for addressing civil rights issues like ensuring women receive equal pay and people of color have the same opportunities as white people, it has had the unfortunate effect of closing employers’ eyes to many other toxic behaviors. It’s imperative, however, that employers understand and address all bad behavior to protect their employees, morale, and the organization’s success.
All toxic behavior, whether unlawful or not, should be addressed by employers.
The Types and Severity of Toxic Behavior
While the law, and therefore employers, tend to put bad behaviors into two containers — lawful or unlawful — the reality is that toxic behaviors intertwine and unfold in a manner that isn’t so neat and tidy. It’s important to understand toxic behaviors through the lens of reality.
Viewing toxic behavior on a spectrum
When incivility and other types of toxic and hurtful behaviors are allowed to thrive, they become normal over time. As they become normal, tolerance for them increases — meaning a joke that may have been offensive nine months ago is no longer offensive because now everyone is used to it. Everyone laughs, so anyone who may still feel it’s inappropriate is unlikely to speak up. The behaviors, therefore, continue to escalate, become normal, cause tolerance to increase, and so on. In other words, and as Figure 2-1 highlights, toxic behavior unfolds over time from subtle to overt to physically dangerous.
With this limited view of toxic behaviors as lawful or unlawful, employers miss out on activities like delivering training to their workforce on how to be self-aware, avoid microaggressions, and talk to each other when they feel psychologically unsafe or hurt by a team member. Instead, some employers offer anti-harassment training, for example, focused on defining unlawful behavior and how to report it to human resources (HR). While useful to know, that information doesn’t provide the interpersonal and communication skills needed by all members of the workforce to build and sustain a positive work culture.
FIGURE 2-1: The toxic behavior spectrum, demonstrating how subtle behaviors can unfold over time into more overt and potentially even dangerous behavior.
As you look beyond the lawful and unlawful paradigm to one that’s more fluid and accepting that even subtle, lawful behaviors are toxic, it’s important to identify and define the variety of behaviors that are harmful to people and teams. Table 2-1 defines the various types of toxic behaviors and their potential outcomes.
TABLE 2-1 Toxic Behaviors
Behavior
Definition
Potential Outcomes for Targets
Examples
Incivility or rudeness
Subtle slights or insults, often automatically and unconsciously, that indicate the recipient is not valued
Feeling isolated, frustrated, shut down, or not valued
Interrupting, talking over, ignoring someone’s presence or ideas, checking email during a presentation
Sarcasm or teasing in ways that “sting,” gossip
Condescending tone, degrading language, dirty looks
Microaggressions
Subtle slights or insults directed toward a person due to their group membership, often automatically and unconsciously
Creates “us versus them” atmosphere; indicates closed-mindedness and lack of desire to learn about other people and cultures
Saying, “I don’t see color”
Asking a person with an accent if they were born here
Saying, “You don’t act gay,” or, “You act white”
Mispronouncing a name after you’ve been corrected
Generally difficult behaviors
Annoying behavior that’s unconsciously focused on obtaining validation from others
Frustration and annoyance at the individual’s ability to drain energy, steal time away, or bring down the mood
Complaining, defensiveness, impossible to please
Comes across as helpless, low confidence, doesn’t speak up, indecisive
One-upping, showing off, grandstanding
Unhealthy or unresolved conflict
Conflict that harms relationships because it’s unresolved, or one or both parties are focused on winning versus collaboration
Frustration and aggression, engaging in passive-aggressiveness to “win,” unhealthy team dynamics, inability to collaborate
Not completing a task asked of you to “show them who’s boss”
Undermining the other person through criticism of, or taking credit for, their work
Holding grudges, refusing to consider their point of view or collaborate
Abusive conduct/workplace bullying
Conduct that a reasonable person would find intimidating, hostile, or abusive or believe to be a condition of employment due to an employer’s inability or lack of care to address it; not based on or aimed at a person due to a protected characteristic (race, sexual orientation, religion, disability); equal-opportunity harassment
Isolation, depression, anxiety due to stress, fatigue, physical symptoms (headaches, heart disease), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicidal ideations, death by suicide
Aggressive communication, such as yelling, abusive tone and language, aggressive body language
Humiliation, such as public shaming, social isolation, playing tricks, condescending tone, dismissiveness
Manipulation, such as giving impossible deadlines or workload, giving incomplete information, or giving criticism without offering solutions
Discrimination
Treating people less favorably or cutting them out of opportunities because they belong to a protected class (race, sexual orientation, religion, disability)
Isolation, depression, anxiety due to stress, fatigue, physical symptoms (headaches, heart disease), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicidal ideations, and death by suicide
Not hiring a person due to their race
Not promoting a person due to their religion
Not offering training opportunities to a person due to their disability
Creating a hostile work environment through verbal, nonverbal, and physical behavior
Harassment/hostile work environment
Conduct that a reasonable person would find intimidating, hostile, or abusive or believe to be a condition of employment due to an employer’s inability or lack of care to address it, and is based on or aimed at a person due to membership in a protected class (race, sexual orientation, religion, disability); a form of discrimination
Isolation, depression, anxiety due to stress, fatigue, physical symptoms (headaches, heart disease), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicidal ideations, and death by suicide
Offering an exchange, such as a promotion in exchange for sexual favors (known as quid pro quo)
Physical behavior such as touching, kissing, or blocking movement
Verbal behavior such as making jokes or remarks about a person’s protected characteristic, racial slurs, or inquiries about personal life
Visual or nonverbal behavior such as gestures, sending social media posts or videos, or t-shirts or posters
Mobbing/hazing
Harassment, abuse, and humiliation by two or more people directed at one or more people, with the intention of either forcing those people out of the team or indoctrinating them into the team; often seen in workplaces that have a core group of “insiders”
Isolation, depression, anxiety due to stress, fatigue, physical symptoms (headaches, heart disease), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicidal ideations, and death by suicide
A group of long-time employees “gang up” on a new employee and hide their tools, poke fun at them, and take verbal jabs while they complete a difficult task
A group of male employees repeatedly sexually harass the only female employee with sexual posters on her locker, name-calling, playing tricks on her, and constantly asking her when she’ll go out with one of them (this example is also sexual harassment)
Violence
Any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening behavior ranging from verbal or physical threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide
Isolation, depression, anxiety due to stress, fatigue, physical symptoms (headaches, heart disease), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and physical injuries or death from an assault
Making verbal threats like, “I know where you live,” or, “I’m going to get you”
Blocking a person’s way, throwing things, slamming hands on a desk or wall, aggressive body language
Hitting, punching, or throwing things at a person, bringing or using a knife, gun, or other weapon at work
Toxic behaviors are interrelated, and while Table 2-1 is useful for understanding various types of toxic behavior, it’s important to always keep in mind that the behaviors interconnect. For example:
Uncivil interrupting is a microaggression if the only woman in the room is the one constantly being interrupted.
Abusive conduct is unlawful harassment, or a hostile work environment, if the conduct is focused on a protected characteristic.
Hazing or mobbing is unlawful sexual harassment, or a hostile work environment, if the target is a member of a protected group.
Abusive conduct is workplace violence if the conduct includes physical behavior such as aggressive body language and facial expressions, blocking someone’s way or getting in their personal space, slamming doors, or smacking their fists on their desk, to make a point.
Comparing harassment and workplace bullying
Workplace bullying is often defined differently than harassment in the legal context and, therefore, by employers. However, the two types of behavior have much more in common than they do differences.
For starters, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which enforces discrimination and harassment-free workplaces in the United States, defines harassment as a form of discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). It’s unwelcome conduct that is based on race, color, religion, sex (including sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy), national origin, older age (beginning at age 40), disability, or genetic information (including family medical history).
Harassment becomes unlawful when
Enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment or
The conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive.
See www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/enforcement-guidance-harassment-workplace for more information.
While workplace bullying is not unlawful in the United States, nor is it focused on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, older age, or genetic information, everything else in the definition of harassment applies. Targets of bullying certainly feel like being bullied is a condition of employment, particularly because employers often don’t address the behavior. And it’s certainly severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive.
That’s not to say it’s easy for someone who experienced harassment to get it resolved. Even though it’s unlawful, filing a complaint can be career-ending if it doesn’t go well, and it may be hard to prove if there are no witnesses, particularly if the accused brings in results and revenue.
In its simplest form, harassment and bullying can be described the same way — with the only difference being that bullying is equal opportunity, and harassment is based on a protected characteristic.
Table 2-2 provides more information about how harassment and bullying are similar and different.
TABLE 2-2 Harassment Versus Workplace Bullying
Harassment
Workplace Bullying
Protected characteristic
Required
Not required
Repetition
Required, unless one time is severe or egregious enough to create a hostile environment
Required, unless one time is severe or egregious enough to create a hostile environment
Power imbalance
Not required for harassment to occur, though power imbalance is alluded to and often exists
Usually included in academic definitions
Intent
Not required for harassment to occur; intention is not necessarily discussed
Intention is often mentioned in academic research, though disagreement as to intent exists among researchers and practitioners
Harm and subjectivity
Harm doesn’t have to occur for harassment to occur, though harm likely exists
Academics focus much of their research on psychological and physical harm caused; it seems harm must occur for bullying to occur
Perpetrator
Can be anyone, including a manager, peer, subordinate, vendor, or customer
Can potentially be anyone, though research tends to focus on manager to subordinate bullying, and sometimes subordinate to manager bullying
Understanding organizational deviance
Most of the time, toxic behavior refers to person-on-person behavior. But, people also perpetrate toxic behavior against their employers. Such behavior is called organizational deviance.
To be fair, much of the time, employees engage in organizational deviance to take back their power or recoup their losses. Employees who constantly work overtime because their employer won’t refill an empty position — leaving everyone else to pick up the slack — may decide to cut corners on quality work or purchase more expensive meals when traveling to make up for lost time with their families. Some employees do these things because they feel they can get away with it and don’t mind being dishonest.
Examples of organizational deviance include:
Time theft:
Taking extended breaks, arriving late or leaving early, using company time for personal tasks like scrolling your phone or checking personal email.
Sabotage:
Damaging equipment, undermining projects, intentionally creating errors, spotting errors or problems and not fixing them or telling anyone about them, lying, or not bothering to pass information along to whoever needs it.
Theft or fraud:
Stealing office supplies or tools, misusing expense accounts, or embezzling funds.
Organizational deviance can significantly undermine the success of individuals and organizations.
Conflict as a Toxic Phenomenon
Conflict is an inevitable part of the workplace. When you work with different people, you get different perspectives, values, and goals, which can sometimes clash and create tension or disagreement between individuals, groups, teams, or departments.
Though the word “conflict” may immediately conjure images of heated arguments or passive-aggressive behavior, not all conflict is inherently bad. In fact, conflict can lead to innovation and better collaboration when handled effectively. However, in toxic workplaces, unhealthy conflict can spiral out of control, damaging relationships, morale, and productivity.
Defining workplace conflict
At work, conflict can occur between individuals, groups, teams, departments, or worksites.
Workplace conflict is any disagreement or tension caused by the perception that another person’s needs, interests, or goals are a threat to your needs, interests, or goals. In other words, one or both sides believe the other side is blocking them from achieving their goals. Goals can refer to accomplishing a task, communicating effectively, or simply functioning effectively and efficiently at work.
In the organizational context, various types of conflict include:
Task-related conflict:
Disagreements about how work should be done, such as differing strategies or priorities, or conflict over the best way to spend money or use resources. Two project managers disagreeing about where to allocate some of their budgets, managers arguing about the priority of tasks to meet a client deadline, and software developers fighting over which approach to take to develop the next phase are all examples.
Interpersonal conflict:
Clashes stemming from personality differences, communication styles, or misunderstandings. Examples include introverted employees who just want to get their work done clashing with extroverted employees who just want to chat, or hurt feelings due to a misunderstanding of tone and messaging in an email.
Intraorganizational conflict:
Internal tensions caused by structural or policy-related issues within the organization, like unclear roles or conflicting priorities from leadership. Organizational conflict can easily arise when roles and responsibilities are ambiguous and result in overlapping efforts, blame-shifting, and poor communication between two teams. Two departments competing for limited resources or inconsistent messaging from leadership about policies or goals are also examples.
Interorganizational conflict:
Disagreement between two or more organizations, businesses, or even countries. One organization may bully another to shrink that organization’s market share, competitors may fight over the purchase of a technology company that can take their business to the next level, and countries may fight over resources or to put an end to a country’s government.
Understanding the type of conflict you’re dealing with is one part of the key to resolving it effectively — because not all conflict requires the same approach. A misunderstanding due to an email needs a different path to resolution than the argument over whose fault it is that a marketing initiative crashed and burned because no one knew who was supposed to do what.
Examining productive versus unhealthy conflict
Not all conflict is bad conflict, and it’s important to distinguish between productive and unhealthy conflict.
Productive or constructive conflict is a disagreement that leads to positive change or improved outcomes. It pushes people to challenge assumptions, think critically, and collaborate in creative ways. For example, a spirited debate during a brainstorming session may help uncover innovative solutions to a tough problem. Constructive conflict thrives in workplaces with psychological safety, where team members feel comfortable expressing differing viewpoints without fear of backlash.
Even if the conflict starts out feeling unhealthy or unproductive, overcoming the uncomfortableness to collaborate and resolve it can build an even stronger relationship between the two parties.
The benefits of constructive conflict include:
Personal growth:
Getting through a tough conflict situation requires you to be mindful and empathetic to the other person, attempt to understand the other person’s point of view with an open mind, be innovative as you seek a collaborative solution, show patience as you listen and work through the issues, ask the right questions, be selfless and humble, and be kind to yourself and the other person. All these skills require diligence and practice as you continue to improve your ability to navigate conflict.
Stronger interpersonal relationships:
Disagreements require open communication to reach a resolution. When done right, trust and understanding between team members are strengthened, you learn more about how the other person thinks and processes information, you build respect and understanding of each other, and practice problem-solving and finding solutions together.
Organizational benefits:
When psychological safety exists inside an organization, constructive conflict can flourish and benefit the organization tremendously. Constructive conflict results in innovation, problem-solving, stronger collaboration and teamwork, more effective and efficient teams, cross-functional cooperation, proactively overcoming challenges, and ultimately enhanced organizational success.
Unhealthy conflict, on the other hand, undermines relationships and productivity. This type of conflict often becomes personal, creating feelings of resentment, hostility, or fear. For instance, when employees gossip about one another instead of addressing their concerns directly with each other, it fuels mistrust and erodes team cohesion. In toxic environments, unhealthy conflict can become the norm, leading to a culture of avoidance, blame, and constant tension.
While bullying is sometimes compared to conflict, these two concepts are very different due to the psychological power imbalance. When two people are in conflict, they both believe they can either persuade the other person, find a way to collaborate, or, at the very least, move forward amicably. In bullying, the target develops poor self-esteem and morale, suffers from reduced cognitive processing due to the stress, and sees no way forward other than to simply take the abuse.
WHEN THE ORGANIZATION ALLOWS CONFLICT TO FESTER
A manager and their employee didn’t get along. The employee felt that the manager picked on them, seemed to give them the undesirable assignments, and didn’t give them the same time the manager gave others on the team for answering questions or addressing challenges.
The manager felt that the employee’s claims were unfounded, and the manager perceived the employee as often acting like a helpless victim of circumstance instead of bringing solutions. When the manager tried to help the employee address challenges, the employee got defensive and argumentative, and it was exhausting.
Neither person saw any way out of the conflict, and in a big organization with lots of red tape, it was hard to get much help from HR. Conflict mediation may have been helpful, but it wasn’t easy to get permission to use some of the budget on an outsider coming in to help. “Hopefully, they can both just act like adults and move on,” was the sentiment around the department.
One day, as they passed each other on the stairwell, something happened. While no one will ever know what happened other than the two of them, the employee claimed that their manager tried to push them down the stairs. The manager vehemently denied it and claimed that the employee was just trying to get them in trouble.
