Are you okay at work? How toxic the culture of your workplace is!

Hello LinkedIn members, I wish you are enjoying a healthy work atmosphere and you do not suffer from a toxic work culture.

Today, I am starting my article by the end. I am starting by the conclusion part.

If you are a team member or a team leader, please, answer the below questions:

• what are your team values? are they clearly communicated with you?
• what is the conflict management strategy that is followed once a conflict occurs at work?
• Do you feel safe to gently communicate the unethical violations that happen to you at work with your team mates? and how do they react to such a communication?
• Do you feel safe to report the unethical violations that happens to you at work to your team leader?
• Did you ever feel unsafe to report an unethical violation happened to you at work because you are afraid of your team members reactions afterwards?

Today, I am telling the untold stories that non of my colleagues knew nor most of my direct managers, the unfinished business that keeps on irritating me as a human being not as an employee every time I remember that I had nothing to do to save myself at work.

For ethical reasons, I confirm that what I am telling is not related by any means to the employers listed on my LinkedIn profile. I am grateful and thankful to the learning opportunities my employers offered.

So, let's enumerate 8 situations I felt I am dying at work, sometimes, cried to my manager and even hated myself then went back home thinking I have an adaptation issue.

1. The antagonistic behavior (bullies and the new employee experience): let's travel back in time 7 years ago, 2015, when I was accepted as an intern in a marketing agency. Digital marketing was not as evolving as now. A handsome 28 years old guy, the creative director, was my work place tour guide. I was fascinated by the graphics on the walls and I thought such colorful paintings would spice up my life especially that I was the typical nerd medical student. The nice guy introduced me to the marketing team. everyone was smiling and I felt so welcomed. My job was supposed to be easy in the first day, the nice guy told his team "Dina's job today is to ask you a lot of questions. You know what to do. Take care of our new intern" then he left to his office. once the director left, everyone looked at me changing their facial expressions really quickly. I felt stressed. 7 minutes after the team director left, I asked the employee that I was shadowing "Can I ask you abou..." then I was interrupted. This is what the employee mentioned: "Is your phone silent! I need you to be more silent than your phone" then everyone in the office laughed at me. I was shocked and stayed silent for 2 hours. everyone was allowed to speak except me. The more humiliating part was that employees asked me questions and I was not allowed to answer as I have to be silent. They laughed at me for 2 hours. I left in the first break and never got back again. I was so na?ve to accept bullying and I did not even think to report to the director. I decided to leave because I do not have the honor to work with such bullies. then decided to get back to my polite colleagues in the medical school. No digital marketing, no cry. let's check what happened when I passed by by a similar work place toxicity but I reported to the team leader.

conclusion: the antagonist behavior of bullies at work place kills productivity and is a key failure factors wen it comes to talent management.

2. Sense of belonging versus inclusion (the toxic senior employee): It was my first day at work, a summer job. I was supposed to finalize some work on the laptop. one hour before the lunch break, they asked me "Would you order food with us?" I explained that I have my home made salad and sandwiches but we can eat together once the food is there. then someone mentioned " No! you are out! since you are not ordering with us, do not eat with us". for 4 days, I was labeled by the word "out" as if I had to pay the price for saying no. in my third day, the team had a brainstorming session for 1 hour before the team leader comes, every time I tried to speak, everyone was telling me "NOOOO! you are out" with everyone laughing except one person showing non verbal empathy. I asked them why am I not allowed to participate since it is a team task. then, I explained that this was unprofessional and I have the right to participate as a colleague. they ignored me and kept on brainstorming. the most senior employee mentioned "miss headache, you can take a break till we finish". I reported that to the team leader after he got done with his meetings and here is the shock, when the team leader asked them about the incident, the most senior employee denied what happened and mentioned that they did not want to escalate me because I was the only one who did not participate. the guy who showed non verbal empathy was honest enough to tell the truth. but the guy and I were treated very badly the rest of the day as we betrayed the unethical code that the whole team adopted. We, both left. we left that toxic group of people. later on after I worked in a corporate with healthy culture and promoted to be a team leader, I realized that the team leader did apply any of conflict management techniques to establish peace nor positive coaching. we left an organization without values where employees lie and hate each other, where employees are one toxic group more than being a team. if you are different, so, you are out. the belonging is not to the organization. the belonging is to the senior employee, the most powerful head who set the rules even if the rules are against the right of each and every employee to feel included in the operations. senior employee is even more powerful than a very busy team leader.

conclusion: Sense of belonging is when employees belong to the organization and apply the organizational values. sense of belonging is to belong to the team who has an ethical unified goal set by the team leader not to belong a random group of people who obey the most dominant team member who is way far from the team leader's goal and from the ethical framework of the organization.

3. A supervisor versus a team leader: Each team leader is supposed to

• set values for the team and gain an agreement regarding applying such values on daily basis.
• Be proactive and experienced enough to lead by example not to be reactive to the unethical violations.
• Unethical violations happen. so, a team must have a clear conflict mana
• Be there where the team is, not to spend most of his time a way from the teams office to manage the daily activities, to prevent the toxicity of that senior employee and to apply fair conflict management techniques aiming for peace.
• Apply positive coaching methodologies and set clear communication with relative actions against those who break the values of the organization. What is the added value of a top achiever employee but a toxic infectious seed in the team?

Unfortunately, I could not find that team leader early in my career so, I left many work places months or even days after I joined while I was a student wishing to work to have experience but what I got was painful experiences that enriched my perceptions right now. so, I am so much grateful for each and every situation.

4. Lack of empathy (double standards) : Back to the team of the second case, the team leader was always busy with meetings with other departments and I was given a task that requires a lot of research. in the absence of the team leader, the office was always noisy. I tried to focus but I could not. I gently asked the team once to lower their voices as I have to submit the task before the deadline. what happened was the opposite of what I requested. the team started to play games and laughed loudly. One of the team members started to play with coins to maximize the noise. some employees only act professionally when the team leader is there. the issue with that team was that they know when to act professionally and when to act toxic. The team leader only spent 2 hours in the office. rest of the shift was hell to me. so, I had many issues to report. the whole shift was a mess. Fortunately, I left.

conclusion: lack of empathy is against humanity. if I am a team member and colleague gently asked me to help him or her to do their task, I would help if I can instead of being a source of stress and doing the opposite.

5. No organizational values: Now, we understand how the values of an organization affect the daily practices of the employees and the crucial rules that supervisors and team leaders play to maintain a healthy work culture.

6. Different employees receive different messages: This time I was so happy in the beginning because my team leader was telling me new updates before other team members. the team started to feel I was special and different so, I felt the change in the way they treated me. later on and after I worked in a corporate, I learnt that all employees of the same position must receive similar messages for work fair environment, maybe in a different way, but same message by the end. I paid the price of being special and I could not tell my team leader that sending different messages to different employees who have the same position was unfair. Here is why I could not communicate it with the team leader.

7. Destructive feedback versus selective communication: It did not happened to me but I felt so bad for that colleague. in the monthly team meeting, the supervisor was praising the top achievers which was a prefect practice but what was irritating for all team members was that the team leader was so destructive speaking to the less achieving employees this way " for sure, you cannot be like xyz who are top achievers for 3 months in a raw, you are such a pathetic hopeless case". Later on I learnt that #coaching is a great leadership skill. the art of giving constructive #feedback is a key performance management skill as well.

8. What to do versus how to do it: back to the 7th point when the supervisor gave a destructive feedback in the team meeting. One of my most helpful managers taught me 2 precious performance management tips

• the first one is to " know how " must follow what to do. a supervisor cannot tell a team member "you need to achieve your target" without giving tips and best practices.
• the second one is to be part of the solution by supporting progress even if tiny and to follow up

The 9th and the 10th will be my lessons leant:

• A company's culture is more important than salary. culture is people. great companies invest in employees, set values and always support team leaders to lead by example, support peace practices and apply fair communication and coaching techniques.
• I believe that our ability to adapt to different work environments varies but none of us is supposed to accept being bullied or disrespected in the name of adaptation. that is why I love my job as a trainer. I always raise awareness about business ethics and I try to do my best to leave my first and last training message "Always remember the decent human beings that we meant to be" May peace be our final destination!

conclusion: if you are a team member or a team leader, please, answer the below questions:

• What are your team values? are they clearly communicated with you?
• What is the conflict management strategy that is followed once a conflict occurs at work?
• Do you feel safe to gently communicate the unethical violations that happens to you at work with your team mates? and how do they react to such a communication?
• Do you feel safe to report the unethical violations that happens to you at work to your team leader?
• Did you ever feel unsafe to report an unethical violation happened to you at work because you are afraid of your team members reactions afterwards?

finally, I would like to thank all corporates I joined as an intern, worked for and got promoted as manager in because such corporates always supported my ethical framework and gave me enough time to highlight the importance of healthy cultures and set values for the early career trainees. I was always encouraged to start by soft skills training before technical training.

I will be more than happy to read your feedbacks in the comments section.

See you next week with "training & development hub" newsletter!