“You always have a right to protect your mental, emotional, and physical well-being by removing yourself from toxic people and circumstances.”
Dr. Janice Anderson & Kiersten Anderson.
We all have stressful days at work. We’re constantly engaging with other people, with differing ideas, motivations and approaches to the challenges we experience in the workplace.
Defining a toxic workplace goes beyond one-off challenges and into a repetitive nature of problematic situations and behaviours from one or more individuals.
Challenging moment in the workplace. Image: Mark Woodward
Here are five differences between a toxic workplace and a challenging one:
Chaotic, inconsistent leadership: Leaders giving you the run-around? Absent, chaotic and poor leadership or management or key signs of a toxic workplace.
Lack of transparency, honesty and communication: Even if it’s bad news, we all like to be kept informed about the things that directly impact our roles. If everything feels like a cover-up, it’s generally a really bad sign.
A ‘throw-away’ culture around employees: If employees aren’t listened to or their complaints aren’t acted upon, there’s likely a high turnover of staff. Organisations that see employees as ‘throw-away’ and easy to replace are usually pretty toxic.
Overt harassment, bullying, or racism: No workplace is immune from a bully or two, but if the general culture is one built on gossiping, competitiveness, in-fighting, bullying and harassment it’s a huge red flag.
Office confrontation. Image: Mark Woodward
You’re not treated as an equal: Everyone within an organisation forms a functional ecosystem. From the most entry-level roles to the senior leadership team: everyone should be acknowledged and respected. If they’re not, it’s a strong indication of a toxic environment.
Being able to find common ground, collaborate and put aside personal differences to achieve successful outcomes is a vital component of being a professional.
You’re not going to get along 100% with every person you work with - and that’s okay. It doesn’t make that person or the workplace you’re involved in toxic necessarily.
But if you find yourself nodding along to all of the above - you might need to take more concrete action to make changes for yourself - before it’s too late.