3 Signs to Find out If You Work In A Toxic Workplace

What is that one thing that adds up to bad leadership and a toxic workplace? The answer is fear – fear of losing your job. A workplace that refuses to bring in dynamic leadership follows styles of the past. The customs of bad leadership were never announced, they just snuck in and made it their home.

A bad leader will first make you realize that you’re an invaluable and unwanted staff member. By now, the fear of being tagged as a ‘bad employee’ has been seeded into your brain. Next, that bad leader will scold you for things which could have been resolved calmly with no disruption. Finally, they start threatening you by saying things like, ‘If I don’t get that report by the end of the day, don’t bother to come tomorrow’ or ‘How did you let this slip? You’re good for nothing to this company.’

This is a common approach of a bad leader in order to develop a fear of losing jobs among staff members. This contributes to a toxic workplace, which does nothing but harms the growth of the company. A toxic workplace devalues the employees of the company instead of boosting and allowing them to flourish.

Are You Working in a Toxic Workplace?

There are many signs to spot a workplace that is not only bad or toxic but is continually making the lives of their employees much more difficult. But what are those signs? Let’s find out:

1. Stagnant or No Growth

It takes huge efforts for companies to grow and continually evolve each quarter. But a toxic workplace will not see many achievements under their hood. This doesn’t mean the employees aren’t working hard enough, but it just simply means the managers and employees aren’t committed as much as they should be. Most of their time is spent either gossiping or taking too many coffee breaks. They believe in completing their tasks and that is all. They won’t take an extra step towards bringing the company to success. No high hopes.

2. No Transparency/Communication

The communication between a manager and an employee should be clear. But at toxic workplaces, you won’t even get a chance to have a healthy conversation, let alone clear communication. A dialogue between a manager and an employee is more of a monologue where the speaker is the manager. The other party will listen to his manager’s rantings and try his best to keep calm. Other times, the employee bursts out and gives it back to the manager, which can mean only one thing: staff members don’t respect each other.

3. All Work, No Play

Many workplaces have a culture where all they do is work and work, which makes the staff members big time workaholics. Each employee should be very diligent at work, but that’s very different from working all the time. Toxic workplaces do not allow employees to relax during work hours. Now by relaxing, we do not mean that you go and take a nap. But healthy workplaces do have activities that ensure an employee’s physical and mental health is on the right track.

It would be unfair to hold leaders accountable for a bad workplace culture, as other employees are an equal part of it. And that’s why we have to work together to make our workplaces better.