Signs Of A Toxic Company Culture

Signs Of A Toxic Company Culture
How do you identify that toxic company culture from the outside to avoid joining it. Or, if you’ve already joined it, how do you identify the toxic elements and create a plan to protect yourself from them? In this episode, we’ll outline six signs of a toxic company culture, and offer a few insights to keep that toxicity from infecting you and your team.
Top-Down Leadership Style
Information Hoarding
Default To The Status Quo
Recreational Complaining
Quick Excuses
Top Performer Turnover
Seek to mitigate against top-down leaders. Smash silos and information hoarding. Favor change over the status quo. Listen to complaints before they become recreational and be quick to learn instead of quick to shift blame. In doing so, you’ll make cultural changes-even if it’s just on your team-and you’ll reduce top performer turnover. More importantly, you’ll build a team where everyone can do their best work ever.
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//ABOUT DAVID
One of the world’s leading business thinkers, David Burkus’ forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books are helping leaders and teams do their best work ever.
He is the best-selling author of four books about business and leadership. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into dozens of languages. His insights on leadership and teamwork have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, USAToday, Fast Company, the Financial Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and CBS This Morning. Since 2017, Burkus has been ranked as one of the world’s top business thought leaders by Thinkers50. As a sought-after international speaker, his TED Talk has been viewed over 2 million times. He’s worked with leaders from organizations across all industries including Google, Stryker, Fidelity, Viacom, and even the US Naval Academy.
A former business school professor, Burkus holds a master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Oklahoma, and a doctorate in strategic leadership from Regent University.
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[@GroUp512]

The biggest contributor I see to this toxicity is the lack of leadership training and development. So many that I’ve spoken to in these environments really have little to no knowledge of performance management, coaching, etc. The recreational complaining is so indicative of no one wanting to change the environment and culture.
Excellent video!

[@DavidBurkus]

Thanks so much!

[@thesisypheanjournal1271]

I started a job two weeks ago and am already looking for a new one. When they called me in for the interview, and during the interview, it seemed that they were so impressed by my experience and qualifications that rather than just a part-time mid-level job -- since they only had a budget for a part-time mid-level person -- they'd fill my schedule out with some direct service work to make the job full time. Turns out they meant that they'd get me enough hours per week that I'd have "full time hours," not an actual full-time job. Their onboarding is chaotic. I only just got clarification today -- the start of my third week -- that I'll be scheduled by the agency for the direct service hours and that I then schedule myself for the mid-level hours.
They didn't make it clear what my role was to the people I shadowed with the first times out in the field to meet clients. One direct care worker got offended when I looked over her client's service plan and pointed out, "You're not documenting anything for pre-vocational, but if you're doing X with her whenever you have her out, that's a pre-vocational skill you're working on with her." The worker got offended that I was "trying to re-train her." They didn't explain that I was in a clinical role and that I was supposed to be working to improve documentation, which would include documenting that they worked on a pre-vocational skill.
Really, really sucky communication.

[@DavidBurkus]

Well...glad you got the job....and that you're not wasting time looking for a new one.

[@thesisypheanjournal1271]

@@DavidBurkus I have an interview on Monday. I like the work, but just don't want to work for a place that doesn't take care of their employees. They reimburse for mileage if you take a client someplace, but not for driving from one client's house to another, which means you might be doing a 40-mile round trip on your own dime. Nope.

[@Allbeautylab]

Mind blowing. Back in the olden days, toxic culture was so obvious (micromanaging and the squeaky wheel gets replaced not oiled). Nowdays it's more nuanced and refined. Thank you for sharing

[@DavidBurkus]

Yeah. It's subtle now...and remote work makes it even subtler. Thanks so much!

[@bistdushejn]

This was so validating after my last job experience. I didn’t know how to describe what happened and everything you said was incredibly spot on.

[@DavidBurkus]

Thanks. And so sorry to hear you had to live through that.

[@ThisisPam]

Good stuff

[@DavidBurkus]

Thanks so much!

[@barbb143]

Really good stuff!

[@DavidBurkus]

Thanks so much Barbara!