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Impacting Toxic Culture
My career took a turn and I landed in a place where they are in the process of cultivating a more positive culture. I came from a toxic environment that, I hear, is only getting worse. It seems serendipitous that I am now in a position to prevent just that.
One of the things I notice most about negative, dysfunctional cultures that scare away their best talent, is that leaders don't listen. They don't look inward and own what's going on. They aren't curious about how they may be contributing to the toxicity and environment of distrust and fear. Instead, they tend to point their fingers and assume that employees who call them out "just don't fit in here."
I aim to influence leaders to do just that: seek to understand. If you find that your work culture has taken a dive, either because you are the brunt of it or because it's the muttered undertone of your teams, let's start that hard conversation. What are your experiences with toxic work culture? How have you been able to affect change? Or not? What are the barriers? Have you ever owned your part in it?
Comment below!
These are great points about transforming a toxic culture from my perspective and experience working with educational companies, private, public, charter and corporate.
I worked for dysfunctional California charter schools for several years who were extremely toxic in dysfunctional cultures. Students were also negatively impacted in these toxic environments.
My graduate school mentor in my masters in educational leadership program always spoke about leading from the middle. That has always been a part of me. Mutual respect, compassion humility and ethics are critical in a work environment. I am now working more in those kind of environments, notwithstanding, giving one person too much power over others in almost any environment, is a bit risky and everyone needs to be more transparent in education and in other fields.
For example an instructional lead or coach is a great title for someone in education but manager has a slightly negative connotation to it. Subtleties make a difference. Everyone, including "managers" should be held accountable in some meaningful way since there are subtle ways that people may create fear.
I am learning to listen to myself and how I feel about people who may be a lead in a dept. I work in, as well as the impact I may have as a lead. It's important to check in with oneself. Honesty with oneself is critical and then it extends to one's community. We all have biases or make judgments as humans but if we reflect upon those we are able to not act upon them but learn to understand why we feel that way and take a more Buddhist approach.
A dept. chair that I have been working with always says respond and do not react which is an approach that I know but it helps to remind oneself of that. We need more reflection in our work cultures as well as beyond them.
When leadership is ethical and the leaders believes in creating a collaborative environment where people are treated with respect and are valued, that tends to permeate through out the organization, nation, etc.
During my time in the military, we often discussed identifying and preventing toxic work environments. The irony is that the units with the most toxic commands, had the most discussion of toxic work environments... and continued to be toxic.
When I was a junior member of the staff, it was easier to keep my head down and keep myself from being a target. As I was promoted, and switched into new positions and new units, I started working to be an "umbrella" to keep external toxic influences out of my direct reports daily environment. I've had mixed results in different units, based on a number of factors, but I keep trying.
There's a saying in the military, "Only take on what your rank can support." When you don't have a lot of rank or seniority, it can be challenging to "mentor up" and improve toxic cultures. As you become more senior, I think you have a responsibility that comes with your greater influence to improve situations.