Toxic environments make people sick, make projects fail, and make best employees quit. Why leaders need to get involved and do something about this.

This insightful article was posted by Oleg Vishnepolsky, Global CTO at the DailyMail Online. I am sharing this with all of you as I believe it’s of the utmost importance to leaders, managers of people and organizations that truly value their employees. Our greatest assets walk in and out of our businesses and communities every day. Allowing for negativity, toxicity and unproductive internal competition is negligent, and will hurt us all in the long run.

In my role as Vice Chairman, Founder & Head at Savills in Canada, I take the time understand the inner workings of my own workplace culture, and the place our employees spend most of their days. I look to bring on the best and brightest in their field, and ensure we have space that promotes teamwork, collaboration, the opportunity for growth, learning, encouragement, fairness, recognition, and the ability for people to build their own futures.

Read on for some of the warning signs of toxic work environments and what you should avoid when considering a career change. It’s important to get a gauge of what you are stepping into, by speaking with colleagues, peers and mentors.

"Culture is more important than vision. Some leaders have great vision, but have created a toxic culture where that vision will never happen." - Phil Cooke

Some of the top signs you work in a toxic environment:

1) Disrespect and belittlement 

2) Unreasonable pressure to get short term results at expense of the long term strategy

3) Inequity, unfairness, favoritism, injustice

4) Any kind of harassment and bullying 

5) Lack of empathy, of appreciation, of support

6) Excessive control known as micromanagement

7) Morally questionable environments, lack of integrity, encouragement of dishonesty

In an environment like this, no matter how great a vision and strategy are - they will never be executed on.

That is why it is some imperative that great leaders fix toxic cultures. Great leaders empower, involve, listen, appreciate, challenge, support, mentor. They value hard work and job well done, honesty, integrity, commitment and dedication.

They know that as the well-known Advertising & Marketing Leader Peter Drucker is well known for saying:

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast."

Do you agree? I would love to hear from you, either below in my comment section, by direct message as a lot of you have been doing recently, or via email at: skrawitz@savills.ca. 

Look out for more content from me regularly, as I share insights, ideas and information I find interesting. 

All the best,
-Stan Krawitz