12 December 2025
You deserve to earn a living in an environment where you make a meaningful difference and feel acknowledged and rewarded for your contributions. That’s at the very minimum. You also deserve the chance to feel a sense of belonging with friendly, helpful colleagues and the opportunity to learn and grow. But are you getting those things?
Many people are not.
Over time, the feeling that your efforts are wasted, or you’re not being appreciated, or it’s not safe to speak up, can be not only demoralizing but toxic. If you’re worried that you might be in a toxic work environment, read on.
Toxic is a strong word. It means “extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful.” It’s not a word to throw around lightly. Even knowing how strong an accusation it is to call something toxic, you might legitimately be in a toxic situation.
According to research conducted in 2021 at MIT, a toxic corporate culture is by far the leading cause of workplace attrition.
Research conducted by Manuela Priesemuth¹ suggests that toxic workplaces have a negative impact on work groups’ confidence, on bonds between team members, and on individuals’ well-being.
You can evaluate your work environment on each of these five dimensions to determine whether there might be a serious problem.
If you prefer to watch/listen instead of read, this video covers the same information as below. I’ve included the chapters so you can quickly find the section that’s most relevant to your situation:
Watch the Youtube video here.
Below I’ve laid out five main areas where I see toxicity creeping into the workplace. If the toxic behaviors in your organization are embedded in policy or culture, that’s a sign your workplace might be rotten to the core. Other times it might just be one or two (or three or ten!) bad apples causing all the trouble – these are your toxic leaders, coworkers or customers. What you need to do depends on the source of the rot — and whether or not you should quit or stick around.
The most pervasive form of toxicity in an organization comes when the formal, codified rules by which the company operates are harmful. Toxic policies and processes are especially problematic because they exist beyond any single individual. People can come and go, and the poison lacing the organization remains.
These are only a few examples but anything that is codified into the rules of the organization that could be considered harmful should be on the radar. If you are in an organization with toxic policies, you might be better off getting out.
Culture can be a nebulous term. In it’s simplest form, culture is the set of norms that dictate how people in your organization behave. These are the unwritten rules by which your people operate. And boy-o-boy, can some cultures be insipid and insidious.
Again, I could have written a list the length of my arm of examples that suggest a toxic culture. You get the idea. Do the unspoken rules of the organization tolerate, allow, or even condone nasty, exclusionary, unproductive, or demoralizing behavior? If you think that a toxic culture is the problem in your workplace, here’s my advice on what you can do about it.
Some forms of toxic workplaces are less pervasive than toxic policies or cultures. Some toxicity can be traced back to a single individual. In many instances, these are people with power and control who are making life miserable, either intentionally or unintentionally, maliciously, or innocently.
The vast majority of people who take on management responsibility are decent human beings. Somehow, the combination of pressure and power corrupts. Scary fact, did you know that studies show that empathy declines as power increases? Zoinks! Not good. Consider whether you have a toxic manager. If your organization is healthy but your boss is not, here are your options.
It’s not only those with power that can make life inhospitable in your organization. You’re experience of work is affected strongly by your teammates and colleagues and sometimes that’s not in a positive direction. Is there evidence of any of these destructive behaviors among the members of your team?
If these kinds of things are happening on your team, they will undermine not only your success but also your health and happiness. If you have toxic coworkers, consider the following options.
Now we’re into the really interesting stuff. It’s possible that you are in a toxic workplace not because your organization has draconian policies, not because the culture has soured, not because your manager’s a jerk, or because your colleagues are. It’s possible that coming to work has become a threat to your physical or psychological safety because your customers are terrible.
Wow. That’s a lot to deal with. How far we’ve come from the heady days of “the customer is always right.” In this day and age, we’ve got flight attendants having to duct tape unruly customers to their seats
It’s a terrible prospect but it’s not far-fetched to think that your customers might be jerks. If you’re bearing the brunt of nasty customers, you might consider these options.
Source: Liane Davey
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