Who is responsible for toxic work culture?

A work culture that affects mind and body negatively of people (includes employees, vendors and other stake holders), it is a toxic work culture. People have to fight for everything. They drag themselves to work. There is no fair system of evaluating performance, rather it is on favoritism.

Some of the signs of a toxic work culture are

1, Being bullied – Employees use their authority and power to get work done instead of creating a buy-in. Most of the time they are forced to do even day to day tasks without taking their opinions into consideration.

2. Gossips and backbiting – Employees talk about each other behind their backs. At no point of time, they are open and frank with each other. Everyone becomes either a victim or the contributor to office politics. There are constant negative communication about the company, leaders and managers. They adversely affect interpersonal relationships, intergroup relationships and overall organizational relationships.

3. Angry managers – Managers use brute force to get the work done. They believe they are always right and their methods are the best to do the job. Any deviation will result in anger from the manager. They insult and hurt the self-esteem of their team members. They constantly hurt their employees and question their abilities.

4. Rigid systems – Systems designed in the organization is based on mistrust. It is on the belief that people don’t want to work and only we can make them work using force. People have to follow systems exactly and they are not allowed any deviation. There is no human consideration, no customer orientation (internal and external). Policies of the organizations are poor.

5. Micro management– Since the system is based on mistrust, you have to take inputs from the leader and work exactly in a way the leader wants you to do. Even if leader doesn’t know much about the subject, still he will interfere and make working difficult. There will be influencers around the leader who would interfere further making work drudgery.

?6. Being overworked – Micro management, repetitive work, constant changes and corrections would make it taxing for employees. Employees feel overworked and had to spent long hours completing their tasks.

7. Chronic stress – Angry managers, micro management, overworked, rigid systems, lack of respect and gossips leads to chronic stress in employees. They force themselves to go to work. They are unable to give time to their families and are mentally and physically exhausted.

8. Performance evaluation – Organization with unclear goals and performance evaluation parameters with rigid systems leave employee clueless on how promotions and increments will be decided. This leads to giving priority to the tasks given by their managers instead on focusing what is important to done. This leads to chaos as frustration among other employees and team members. This becomes a culture where employees say only nice things with an intention of buttering their bosses. This further leads to saying bad things about people they don’t like. Leaders and managers are surrounded with ‘yes’ man who are ready to praise their leaders at the drop of the hat, in front of them.

This leads to conflict, competition, lack of trust, lack of teamwork and collaboration within the employees. This leads to high attrition. Employees who stay behind are the ones who lack skills or self-confidence or even self-esteem to move out of the organization. In short the employees who work in this organization are the ones who lack skills and competence. They have no choice.

Interesting question would be then, ‘who is responsible for the toxic culture? Employees or the managers? The answer is ‘Leaders at the top’. (Since leaders at the top take the credit of the success, they cannot pass the blame to the bottom for the failures). Employees follow their leaders. Toxic work culture is a leadership failure.

One of the main reasons for this toxic culture is over emphasis and over focus on profits and top line. Leaders at the top are ready to go at any lengths to ensure they make profits. It is also about the behaviour of the leaders. The rest of the employee would imitate their leaders and the same would flow down to the bottom. If the leaders at the top use insulting and degrading language, others would follow and eventually become a norm.

I have worked in the culture where the CEO of the company would fire and insult everyone (read employees) when he has a bad mood. Everyone would be scared of interacting with him that day (those days would be frequent). He would get angry instantly without listening to the other person. Accounts head would be scared of going in his cabin to get the cheques signed however important they may be. Driver of the CEO would hold more power and any inputs given by him could shake anyone in the organization.

Owner of the company would make everyone stand in his cabin and shout, scream and insult for the mistakes. Only people working in critical profiles will be spared. These privileged employees would form their groups that would lead to intense bullying, gossips and rumors. They are egoistic and see themselves larger than size. These top levels would treat others as nobody. They would shout and scream on someone every day. Everyone will receive those doses every day. Such attitudes and behaviours would lead themselves surrounded by ‘yes’ men, and not able to see their mistakes or become blind to reality.

Such organizations would need complete cultural revamp with improving systems and processes, It is important to get rid of bullying, keeping an open door policies, training their employees, identifying and driving right value systems. It is important to conduct right training programs to sensitize and improve the employee and managers behaviors.?It is necessary to build right performance evaluation systems by measurable goals at the beginning of the year and monitor the progress. Most importantly, mindset at the top needs to be changed otherwise organization would fail sooner or later.

If you are working in toxic environment (there is no attempt to change), you need to move out as soon as you can. If you lack of skills, start improving and acquiring skills. If you are stuck due to financial constraints, find alternate ways of earning. Learn to live in less or be ready to face hardship. Staying there would do more damage than good.

Thank you.

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