Why your toxic boss is winning

Working in a toxic environment is physically and emotionally draining, no matter which industry you work in. Having to be around critical or mean people every day, people with no self-awareness or people who lack any emotional intelligence can suck the life out of anyone. The problem is that while you are still there, they are winning.

The truth about toxic people is that they very rarely change. These are the people who are manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, greedy and selfish. They want to be in charge and they do not care if others cannot understand their leadership style; they are clinging onto that corporate ladder and they do not care who they trample on in the meantime.

Unless the leadership above them can see how they are treating others or can see how it is negatively impacting the company, these toxic bosses will continue in their ways.

These are people who:

• Never walk the walk or practice what they preach
• Do not have basic social skills to greet employees each day
• Pile on the workload without any understanding of different roles, workloads and limitations
• Ask others to do things that they do not do
• Have no presence and are unapproachable
• Are not available if an employee needs support
• Are constantly looking for faults rather than praise
• Have no forum for feedback so employee-voice is muzzled
• Do not take on board any feedback and brush harsh truths under the carpet
• Have created a culture of fear where employees have a good day if they do not see them
• Roll out initiative after initiative with the sole purpose of enhancing their own CV
• Are critical, rude, mean, unprofessional or negative
• Have made zero effort to get to know their teams or individuals on a personal level
• Do not conduct adequate goal setting/ performance management based on targets of the employee and how that supports the company
• Are unaware of the strengths of employees so keeps them pigeon-holed into basic roles
• Do not empower employees to lead initiatives or play to their strengths
• Have favourites (and they are generally puppets/ yes-people who are easily controlled)
• Undervalue and overwork their employees – there is no thanks or fake thanks

The list is endless and very sad to see that so many people like this have managed to secure leadership roles without the adequate skills to lead, but, there are only four ways to get around this:

1. Silence
2. Raise a concern/ grievance to your line manager
3. Raise the concern directly to the person
4. Leave/ find a new job

Many people feel stuck or trapped in their jobs due to mortgages, rent, visas, packages, education, experience, salary or family factors out of work, but we are never truly stuck – there is always something better out there and nobody deserves to endure 8-12 hour days dealing with people who treat others so badly.

Work is meant to be a place where you feel safe, creative, motivated and driven to do the best you can, but if you are burnt out, stressed, walking on eggshells for fear of losing your job, or constantly criticized, it is difficult to want to spend days like this.

Staying silent however, and doing nothing, is saying to these people that you are accepting the behaviour and they will continue to treat you like this. Think of the school bully who keeps bullying until the victim turns round one day and smacks him/ her. It is the same for toxic bosses – until they are told it is unacceptable, they will continue in their toxic ways, thinking nothing is wrong.

Yes, raising a concern takes courage, and for some (who feel there is no support) it can be dangerous as you do not want to lose your job, but by raising a concern directly to the person, or to a line manager, it is down on paper officially and there is a record kept. Yes, it can be left un-actioned and it can be swept under the carpet, but if you look at the company’s workplace harassment policy, you will probably find that, with behaviour like this, there is evidence to some degree of harassment or unfairness, and you are entitled to go to the police or the Ministry of Human Resources if the company do not act upon a claim adequately.

If this seems too dangerous for you, the only way to make your point and set the boundary that you will not put up with it, is to leave or start looking for alternative employment.

Eventually the company will realise, when attrition reaches a high, that the lack of effective leadership and the poor treatment of employees is the reason for the turnover, and this costs the company money to recruit and retrain new team members – perhaps the only language that a toxic company understands.

If your company puts profit over people, could it be time to look elsewhere?