Title: Understanding and Overcoming the Challenges of Toxic Workplaces
Introduction:
Toxic workplaces can be detrimental to the mental and physical health of employees, as well as the overall well-being of an organization. Defining a toxic workplace can be challenging, but it typically involves behaviors such as disrespect, discrimination, unethical practices, and abusive conduct. Employees in such environments are at risk of experiencing a complete mental breakdown. The consequences extend beyond personal lives, affecting the entire organization with higher turnover rates, increased healthcare costs, disengaged staff, and potential reputational damage or legal liability. However, addressing toxic workplace culture is not an easy task, and traditional interventions may not be effective in resolving the issues at hand.
Understanding the Effects of Toxic Workplaces:
A toxic workplace can significantly impact the mental and physical health of employees. According to a study conducted by the MIT Sloan Business School, toxic environments lead to increased stress, exhaustion, and a higher likelihood of serious illnesses such as coronary heart disease and arthritis. These health issues can further contribute to employee turnover, higher healthcare expenses, decreased productivity, and potential legal consequences. The study also highlights the fact that workplace interventions often fail to address the root causes of toxicity, making it challenging to bring about meaningful change.
The Complexity of Changing Organizational Culture:
Changing an organization’s culture is a complex and time-consuming process. It requires a holistic approach that involves addressing the underlying systemic causes of toxic behaviors. Simply removing a toxic individual from the equation might not fix the problem entirely. As Steve Hearsum, an organizational development consultant, points out, changing organizational culture takes years. A prime example can be seen in his experience with a dysfunctional team in the UK health service, where, even after the removal of a harassing manager, the toxic environment and behaviors persisted.
The Role of Anxiety and Depression:
Contrary to popular belief, anxiety and depression are not random occurrences but are often triggered by the external environment. Jonny Ward, a supervisory manager and psychotherapist, explains that working in an unsupported or harassing environment creates anxiety and impairs an employee’s ability to focus on their tasks. This leads to a decline in productivity and a heightened state of self-protection. Additionally, anxiety can spread within a team or organization, contributing to a toxic culture. Understanding the impact of anxiety and depression is crucial in addressing the underlying causes and finding effective solutions.
Personal Experiences and Transformation:
Personal experiences shed light on the negative impact of toxic workplaces and the potential for transformation. Peter, a senior manager in an insurance company, faced a traumatic experience that included accusations of taking unacceptable risks and public confrontations by his new line manager. Fortunately, through the intervention of a psychotherapist specializing in corporate conflict, Peter was able to change his own reactions and eventually witnessed the departure of the toxic boss. This example emphasizes the importance of addressing individual responses to toxic environments and the potential for positive change.
Going Beyond Traditional Interventions:
Traditional interventions such as leadership programs often fail to address the underlying systemic issues in toxic workplaces. Simply providing managers with new skills or tools without considering the overall environment is ineffective. Simon Cavicchia, a psychotherapist, coach, and consultant, highlights the dominance of patriarchal, masculine leadership archetypes in most organizations. Instead, a collaborative approach that includes the entire team in discussions about the problems and necessary changes is essential. This approach encourages commitment and ensures everyone takes responsibility for bringing about meaningful change.
The Importance of High-Level Support:
For any successful transformation, high-level buy-in is crucial. Organizations need to support and protect individuals advocating for change in toxic workplace culture. Without sufficient permission and protection, attempts to bring about transformation may be in vain. Organizations must recognize the significance of addressing toxic culture and provide the necessary resources and support for those driving the change process.
Conclusion:
The detrimental effects of toxic workplaces on employees and organizations are increasingly being recognized. Understanding what constitutes a toxic environment and its impact on mental and physical health is essential in addressing the issue. Overcoming toxic workplace culture requires a comprehensive and collaborative approach, going beyond traditional interventions that focus solely on individual skill development. By emphasizing high-level support, encouraging open discussions within teams, and addressing systemic causes, organizations can create a healthier work environment that fosters employee well-being, engagement, and productivity.
Summary:
A toxic workplace is characterized by disrespectful, discriminatory, unethical, heartless, or abusive behavior that can lead to a complete mental breakdown for employees. The consequences span mental and physical health, increased employee turnover, higher healthcare costs, disengaged staff, and reputational damage. Changing a toxic workplace culture is a complex process that requires addressing systemic causes and going beyond traditional interventions. Anxiety and depression contribute to toxic environments, and a collaborative approach involving the entire team is essential for meaningful change. High-level support is crucial for successfully transforming a toxic workplace.
—————————————————-
| Article | Link |
|---|---|
| UK Artful Impressions | Premiere Etsy Store |
| Sponsored Content | View |
| 90’s Rock Band Review | View |
| Ted Lasso’s MacBook Guide | View |
| Nature’s Secret to More Energy | View |
| Ancient Recipe for Weight Loss | View |
| MacBook Air i3 vs i5 | View |
| You Need a VPN in 2023 – Liberty Shield | View |
A toxic workplace can be hard to define. According to a MIT Sloan Business School Study of 2022, ingredients may include disrespectful, discriminatory, unethical, heartless, or abusive behavior. But what is clear is that they have the potential to cause employees a complete mental breakdown.
Health professionals and organizational development specialists warn that toxic workplaces tend to produce multiple victims and that the consequences can affect not only the personal lives of workers, but also the entire organization of an employer.
The consequences span mental and physical health, according to the MIT study on toxic crops. In addition to stress and exhaustion, such a workplace can result in a higher chance of suffering a serious illness, such as coronary heart disease or arthritis. All of this can lead to increased employee turnover; higher health care costs; disengaged and less productive staff; and the risk of reputational damage, or even legal liability.
Compounding the problem, change consultants say, is that workplace interventions are often ineffective or counterproductive. Even removing the person who seems to be the main source of toxicity might not fix it.
“Changing organizational culture takes years,” says Steve Hearsum, a Brighton, UK-based organizational development consultant.
Sign up for Britain’s Healthiest Workplace
Help your employees be happier, healthier and more productive. Any organization in the UK with 20 or more employees can participate. Click here to sign up now.
He recalls being called up to work with a dysfunctional team in the UK health service more than a year after a harassing manager was sacked. “One or two people kept talking as if [that person] they were still there, as if it was still as unsafe as it was 18 months before,” recalls Hearsum.
One of the difficulties, according to Jonny Ward, who is a supervisory manager for the Manchester fire brigade as well as a psychotherapist and organizational coach, is that people are wrong about how anxiety and depression arise.
“There’s still a narrative that depression and anxiety are things that just happen to people: one day they walk into work and ‘bam!’” says Ward. But that’s not how it works. Our body responds to the external environment.
He says that if someone works in an environment where they feel unsupported or perhaps even harassed, they will feel anxious and unable to focus on their tasks. “His body is not interested in filling out a spreadsheet for his organization,” Ward explains. “He’s interested in self-protection, that’s what our bodies do.”
He has worked with a wide range of organizations, including banks, law firms, and hospitals, but finds that the problems tend to be similar. And, without a change in focus, anxiety can deepen and spread. A person may become unable to sleep, feel out of control, and unable to function at all on or off work. That can lead to elevated levels of anxiety in a team or organization, which can contribute to making it toxic.
Peter, who asked that his real name not be disclosed, experienced his first dark days after more than two decades as a senior manager at a renowned insurance company.
His luck changed when a new line manager joined from outside the company. A disagreement over how he had been running his division suddenly got out of Peter’s control. His new manager accused him of taking unacceptable risks (accusations Peter claimed were later found to be unfounded) and confronted him in front of the staff.
“I felt like everything was imploding, and some days it also made me feel like a failure because I made mistakes in the way I reacted to the situation,” he says.
“You’re pretty much alone because when you’re fighting with your boss, everyone else starts to distance themselves from you,” he adds.
Peter was lucky that the company’s head of human resources brought in an expert in corporate conflict, who was also a psychotherapist. The expert told Peter that while he couldn’t change the situation, he could change the way he reacted to it, and began teaching him how.
The toxic boss, who had also annoyed other people in the organization, ended up leaving. “I don’t think the story with me was the only killer for him, but it was one of the bad acting he was held responsible for,” says Peter.
The factors that led to Peter’s nightmarish experience come as no surprise to Simon Cavicchia, a psychotherapist, coach and consultant in London.
“Often, performance anxiety trumps any well-intentioned agenda around wellness,” Cavicchia says. Managers will inevitably worry about productivity even if the company publicly declares its support for, say, longer lunch breaks or flexible working.
He, like Hearsum, says that when called upon to help with a dysfunctional team, he doesn’t suggest solutions. “The first thing that will interest me is: what is this behavior, these emotions? What are they communicating about the context? What in the system is giving rise to this malaise?” says Cavicchia.
“When teams are full of anxiety, they tend to look for someone to come and write the recipe. But, in my experience, that doesn’t work. It might bring some temporary relief, a bit like taking acetaminophen, but it won’t address the underlying systemic causes of that anxiety that drives that behavior.”
Instead, both Cavicchia and Hearsum emphasize the importance of working with the entire team to come up with suggestions for change from team members. By discussing what is causing problems and what change is needed when everyone is in the same room together, you can seek a commitment from everyone to bring about that change. Follow-up is then needed, often over a long period.
But both make fun of traditional interventions, like sending a manager to a leadership program.
“You can have the most wonderful leadership development program. . . but if you don’t pay attention to the environment, no matter how good the program is, the behavior will reverse itself,” says Hearsum.
“Most organizations are still, despite the changes that are slowly taking place, under the dominance of leadership based on the patriarchal, masculine, lone hero archetype,” says Cavicchia. “We don’t need managers to lead from the front because you can only lead from the front in a system like the military that psychologically molds people into followers. We no longer have compliant workforces.”
Ultimately, Hearsum says, if companies are truly intent on changing a toxic culture, there needs to be high-level buy-in backing those trying to bring about the change: “If you don’t have enough permission and protection, you might as well not bother. “
—————————————————-