Learnings from Toxic Environments
Toxic work environments. We’ve all experienced them. Companies are made up of people, and people are works-in-progress. Some people are inexperienced but afraid to show weakness. Some people are in positions above their abilities and are afraid to seem incompetent. Some people have untreated mental health issues. Some people are sociopaths!
When toxicity feeds upon itself in a company’s culture, you end up with events like the implosion of Enron, the collapse of FTX, and the demise of Twitter. But, “Twitter is Musk’s fault,” you might say. Yes, and it’s truly remarkable to see what happens when one person with serious issues has too much power. But I digress.
What is a toxic leader?
I’m not a psychologist, but I’m pretty sure toxicity in leadership has certain pathologies. So, I asked ChatGPT, “What makes leaders toxic?”
Toxic leaders create environments filled with fear, confusion, and dysfunction. While their behaviors can vary, they generally stem from deep-seated insecurities, poor emotional intelligence, or a misalignment of personal and organizational values. Here are some key traits and behaviors that make leaders toxic:
1. Ego-Driven Leadership
2. Poor Emotional Regulation
3. Lack of Empathy
4. Inconsistent or Arbitrary Decision-Making
5. Micromanagement & Control
6. Encouraging a Toxic Culture
7. Defensiveness & Inability to Learn
8. Lack of Accountability
9. Favoritism & Division
10. Ethical Lapses
That’s an excellent list. It’s not just a list; it’s a scorecard! Try this scorecard with your favorite (ahem) toxic leader and see how many traits they check off.
When does a workplace become toxic?
If you have too many toxic leaders and toxic individual contributors, or if you have someone powerful at the top who is extremely toxic, you get a toxic work environment. I think the best way to describe a toxic environment is to list the outcomes that environment produces.
Work takes precedence over everything.
Feedback is punitive.
Standards are inconsistently applied.
Politics are everywhere.
People constantly fear for their jobs.
Let’s take each of these in turn.
Work takes precedence over everything. Startups demand a ton of work. That’s what we sign up for when we start or join one. But when people feel like they can’t mute Slack for a 3-day weekend or they’ll be seen as not dedicated to the company, maybe there’s a problem.
Feedback in punitive. Feedback is critical for growth. You won’t get better without consistent, regular, supportive feedback. But there’s supportive feedback and punitive feedback. When almost every piece of feedback is used as a negative motivator, it becomes toxic.
Standards are inconsistently applied. It’s shocking how often “do as I say, not as I do” shows up in leaders. It’s also frustrating when you see leaders holding staff to different standards, like brilliant jerks or early employees who get a pass on bad behavior because they’re OGs or buddies with a senior leader.
Politics are everywhere. Politics always exist, even in the best companies. I think it stems from the competitive aspect of human nature. However, there’s a tipping point in a toxic company. For example, when it’s one person on the executive team that everyone knows is political, that’s annoying. When it’s almost everyone, that’s toxic.
People constantly fear for their jobs. This is the ultimate negative outcome of toxic environments. Fear is a sometimes effective short-term motivator, but it doesn’t work long-term.
My own experiences
My career has been a mixture of great environments and toxic ones. Taken as a whole, I don’t regret the journey. Part of me says, “Working in some toxic environments increased my resiliency and helped shape my value system.” Plus, every startup founder will tell you that grit is a key trait required to build a company.
But I also burned out along the way, and I see a lot of burnout in my clients, too. So, the other part of me says, “Surely we can create better work environments.”
I want to share a handful of anonymized quotations directed at me by toxic leaders at various points in my career.
I never tell anyone, “Good job.” I like to hold unrealistic expectations over everyone’s heads to get the most out of them.
If you ever question me in front of my staff again, I’ll fire you.
Everyone is saying […] about you. (The feedback turned out to be a lie.)
I want this environment to be a crucible of high pressure. I want everyone under constant stress.
On the surface, maybe these don’t seem all that bad. Stop whining, Doug! So, you worked in high-pressure environments. People grow under pressure... like diamonds!
Yes, pressure is good and necessary for growth. However, these statements all came from leaders who enabled or intentionally created toxic work environments because they thought it was how to get what they wanted out of their organizations. Even worse, these statements came from people who did not acknowledge their own leadership deficiencies and who treated us punitively if we tried to offer them feedback. Using the scorecard from ChatGPT above, no one from these quotes scored less than a five, and one person scored an eight.
What I’ve come to believe is that we need a different style of leadership, which I wrote about in my inaugural post:
I’ve worked for leaders like this, too. These companies had a “we’re all learning and growing together” mentality, and the most senior leaders demonstrated brilliance, self-awareness, and humility. These environments do exist, and they generate successful outcomes!
My advice for you
First, a disclaimer. This post has been sitting in my drafts for over a year. I’ve come back to it multiple times, trying to capture the right message and learnings. The reason I’ve struggled to post it is that I feel like a hypocrite. I haven’t done a great job of following the advice I’m about to give you. But take these points as a list of what I’ve learned on my career journey.
Toxicity isn’t a binary but rather a spectrum. Every person’s tolerance level is going to be different. For example, you may have an otherwise great manager who still micromanages you. Perhaps that comes from their stress about needing things to be done a certain way for their boss. Perhaps what you see as micromanagement is actually mentorship from them because they believe you need it.
Not everyone has the luxury of leaving a work environment, toxic or otherwise, whenever they feel like it. People need employment, and when the job market is tough, like it is now for software developers, moving to a new job can feel daunting or impossible.
Everyone has to learn to work in some level of toxicity. I personally find any amount of company politics toxic and anathema to the mission of the organization. That’s just me. Some people shrug politics off and just say, “Meh, I don’t have to deal with that person, so whatever.”
You have to figure out where your values line is. Assuming toxicity is a spectrum and that each person has things they can tolerate and things they can’t, your job is to figure out what line you’re not willing to cross when it comes to your own values.
The longer you compromise your values, the faster you will burn out. Take it from someone who has been through burnout and has coached other people going through it. It’s better to recognize a bad environment and get out early than it is to tough it out and end up in bad shape.
As I said above, I don’t regret my career path. But there were a couple of environments and colleagues I wish I had better vetted, and there were pivots I should have made much faster.
Here’s my final call to action. Take a pause. Do an assessment of your professional life thus far. What leaders were toxic? What leaders and work environments were amazing? Are there points in your career journey when you compromised too much on your own values? Are you on the right path now, or do you need to make a change?