.jpg)
A toxic workplace culture can cast a shadow over employee morale and organizational success. Its presence can mean the difference between retaining and motivating a productive team, failing to meet business goals, and losing valuable employees to unhappiness, burnout, and stress.
How do workplaces become toxic? And is there a way for leaders to prevent it once it takes root? The first step is recognizing the patterns that lead to toxic cultures and understanding the role leaders play in building happy or unhappy workplaces.
Defining Toxicity on the Job
What makes a job either wonderful or miserable for each employee is unique. Donald Sull, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a cofounder of CultureX, writes that employees can grumble about a lot of things. But which elements of culture are so awful that they qualify as toxic?
“You might gripe about an old-school or bureaucratic culture, but is that enough to knot your stomach as you pull into the parking lot in the morning?” he continues. “How can we distinguish between a culture so awful that it qualifies as toxic versus one that’s merely irritating?
While organizational culture can disappoint employees in many ways, research of more than 1.3 million Glassdoor reviews of employers shows there are a handful of common attributes that contribute to toxic workplaces.
The five most common elements that have the largest negative impact on how employees rate their corporate culture are:
- Disrespect
- Non-inclusion
- Unethical conduct
- Cutthroat practices
- Abusive management
So, not great! But these complaints must be taken seriously. According to a study from the Society for Human Resource Management, one in five employees left a job at some point in their career because of its toxic culture.
Pinpointing toxic culture elements is vital for leaders to focus their efforts effectively.
How Leaders Contribute to Toxic Workplaces
Ineffective leadership is perhaps the single greatest catalyst for dysfunction, exacerbating the corrosive effects of toxicity on employee morale and organizational health. What makes a bad boss? Behaviors such as constant negativity, micromanagement, and dismissive attitudes toward employee feedback erode trust and breed resentment among team members. A false sense of urgency, taking over projects without explanation, and taking credit for employees' work without giving credit where it’s due are all common management problems that lead employees to quit.
And quit they do: A 2019 survey from DDI's Frontline Leader Project found that 57% of employees have left a job because of their manager. Furthermore, 14% have left multiple jobs because of their managers, and an additional 32% have seriously considered leaving because of their managers.
"The research makes a clear case that we should stop using the term 'soft skills' to describe what are really critical leadership skills," said Stephanie Neal, director of DDI's Center for Analytics and Behavioral Research (CABER). "How leaders manage their emotions and how they make other people feel are the strongest drivers of talent retention.”
If employees don’t or can’t leave a toxic workplace, the toxicity tends to become pervasive. Elevated stress levels, burnout, and mental health issues afflict employees in toxic environments, corroding morale and stifling productivity. Leaders must grapple with the repercussions of their actions, otherwise the problem will persist.
Conclusion
As leaders navigate toxicity, a nuanced understanding of its root causes and pervasive impacts becomes imperative in charting a course toward renewal and resilience. By confronting the harsh realities of toxicity, organizations can forge a path towards cultures rooted in empathy, integrity, and collaboration. In embracing the transformative power of emotionally intelligent leadership, organizations can cultivate environments where employees thrive, innovation flourishes, and organizational success becomes synonymous with collective well-being.
Sources
Discover What Grows Wealth with Minimum Effort & Minimum Risk
