The Root of Toxic Workplaces

I saw an interesting discussion on Twitter this week, which led me to a topic I have not addressed in the past: toxic workplaces.

The discussion was based on a video which showed a Foot Guards musician who collapsed while playing in the rehearsal for the King's birthday parade at Horse Guards in London. Temperatures had soared in London, and the band person collapsed from the heat. As they struggled to get up and continue playing, emergency medics scrambled to assist the soldier.

Having paraded on Horse Guards myself, in 25+ degree weather, in a uniform best suited for a cold day in the Highlands of Scotland, I had both empathy and sympathy for the soldier. What caught my attention was a psychologist claiming that this showed a toxic work environment.

It got me thinking, however, do we really understand the nature of toxic work environments? I believe the issue is that a toxic work environment is not actually a cultural issue, but one whose roots lie in poor managerial leadership.

In far too many cases, we overlook the real cause of toxic work environments, which is bad management. Toxic workplaces are created when we allow leaders to:

• Abuse employees (either directly or via neglect)
• Not care for employees' health and well-being
• Set unattainable goals
• Humiliate and degrade employees
• Destroy employees' self-esteem

Far too often, we turn a blind eye to the successful leader who achieves quantitative goals but leaves a trail of destruction in their path. This happens when we place a higher premium on results and not on the effectiveness of how we achieve them.

There are too many cases of sociopaths who climb the corporate ladder with no internal moral compass of guilt, but deliver an outcome that hits our "ideal" end state. In her seminal book, The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout argues that 1 in 25 people are sociopaths. That is a high number, and organizations have their fair share of these individuals.

In my career in consulting, and as a leader, I have come across far too many cases where leaders have created environments where the employees don't feel safe psychologically or socially. These sorts of work environments are the toxic workplaces.

In the case of the young soldier, they were trying their hardest in a harsh environment. The fact that there were medics there to care for them does not, to me, indicate a toxic workplace. Instead, it shows a soldier with a high sense of responsibility, pushing himself to continue to perform despite adverse conditions.

So, I ask you to think hard about your organization. Are your leaders caring for their people as true servant leaders, or are they too busy trying to look good at their employees' expense?

There is a great video of the Commander of the Australian Army addressing the issue of workplace harassment, using a phrase that is very apt for this situation: "the standard that you walk past (and do nothing about) is the standard that you accept." In other words, when we turn a blind eye to our leaders' abuse of authority, it is actually on us, the leaders.

In my drive to help organizations where their employees flourish, I feel it is incumbent upon me to raise this point. If you don't address it soon, it can get out of control, so we must all be vigilant to ensure our leaders treat their employees with the respect they deserve. To use another adage, treat people the way you would want to be treated yourself.

We are accountable for the output and working behaviours of our Direct Reports.?From that, it is the role of the managers of managers to ensure our leaders behave in a manner that we would expect for ourselves and to deal with issues in a timely manner.