Trust develops over time in organisations. So does toxicity. The two Ts. So easy to neatly package. In reality, creating trust or enabling toxicity are both deeply complex phenomena that speak to how we behave as humans in systems. The capacity to recognise toxicity is an arrow in the quiver of the agile leader.

The human and organisational effect of toxicity

Trust makes us feel safe, a condition we actively seek in collaborating with other ‘members of the pack’. Toxicity, whether in the form of a toxic person, team or entire ecosystem, puts us into a threat state.

As humans, we are wired to collaborate and connect. When effective collaboration is under threat, our nervous systems dash in to protect us and we ‘perform’ entirely differently to how we would if we feel safe – we go into fight, flight or freeze mode.

The ultimate organisational flight response is when an employee resigns, and employees are currently doing it in such numbers that the phenomenon has been dubbed the Great Resignation. In a survey of 82 South African companies, reward-management company Remchannel found that 53% of people who had resigned did it to improve career opportunities, for a better working environment, or to avoid a toxic environment (citing bullying or harassment).

Even when they don’t resign, a toxic work environment can create wheelspin in teams, which could make it difficult or even impossible to achieve long-term business objectives. Think of it as a freeze response.

This ‘paralysis’ occurs because acute stress triggers a cascade of reactions in the body which takes up immense brain and physical resources. When you constantly feel threatened, there are limited resources that your brain can give over to creativity, innovation, goal seeking (determining what is needed to reach a specific outcome) and goal striving (effort, persistence, attention and strategic planning). They – creativity, innovation, goal seeking and goal striving – are precisely what a business needs from its people to achieve its mission.

How leaders can identify bullies in time

As chief of your team, how do you identify bullies before they attain a position where they can influence organisational culture and hamper organisational goals? To be able to do this, you first have to know what a happy, productive team looks like.

J. Richard Hackman, a Harvard professor and expert in team dynamics, determined three characteristics of effective teams in his book Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. They:

1. Deliver outputs that are at the very least acceptable to the client
2. Work together in such a way that they remain a cohesive group in the long term
3. Are made up of individuals who benefit from being part of the team

The occasional speed bump and wobble among team members won’t cause much harm to the group’s makeup in terms of the above, but repeated abuse of power, aggression and intimidation will. These are strong words, implying fiery, hard-to-miss behaviour. But bullying, gaslighting and vilification can be sneaky and seemingly insignificant, making it difficult to bring out into the open. There’s also research that shows how charisma can create a veneer that hides troublesome behaviour.

Why it could be difficult to spot toxicity in a team

Recognising that toxicity is at play is the first, essential action in shifting interrelationships, perceptions and boundaries into a place of safety rather than threat. While explicit training on core values, onboarding procedures, disciplinary processes, anti-discrimination policies and allyship practices are all fundamental, as a leader of people, identifying toxicity is key. Unfortunately, this is also the most difficult step.

What makes it so difficult for leaders to identify toxic behaviour in their organisation? Samkelo Blom, Managing Director of Nomatu, a diversity, inclusion and belonging consultancy, points to three typical explanations: it’s the norm – ‘the way things are done here’; it is deeply embedded in the organisation; and challenging the norm can cost you your job and/or your reputation.

It would have been snappy to write about the ‘5 types of toxic employees’, or bosses, or company culture, and how to deal with them, but in practice each system is as unique as their actors, relationships and how they are organised. 

If you’ve reached the end of this article and you have had a prickly feeling, that’s your nervous system telling you that something said here resonates with you: your company culture and organisational goals might be at risk.

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