Toxic workplace people lack empathy and put themselves first, ignoring colleagues' needs. The speaker separates real toxicity from behaviors like micromanaging that stem from poor time management, then flags favoritism, unrealistic expectations, manipulation, and inconsistency as warning signs that compound the damage.
Chapters
while the, the toxic individual is so self-centered and in, like we talked about, could be on the, you know, on the spectrum of narcissistic that they don't even see it. Which brings me to, there's a complete lack of empathy in toxic individuals. They don't see the impact that they're having on those around them. They don't care. That was what I was guilty of. I didn't care if I bothered someone on the weekends or I made them, you know, work late, or I made them miss an engagement because the work had to get done. I didn't care that they had problems at home that then were causing them issues in the workplace. If you find someone with a, you know, so self-centered, lack of empathy, these emotional outbursts, shift blaming. Then you're definitely being confronted by someone who is a toxic individual. You definitely wanna put a stop to it. So the micromanaging can be confusing for a lot of individuals that come to me saying, oh, this individual's, you know, a micromanager. And when I meet with them or talk with them or engage with them, what I learn is no, they just have really poor time management skills or productivity skills. And they just don't trust themselves, not necessarily other people around them. And on the next point, they're not the best communicators. They're poor communicators. And therefore that's where all of a sudden it starts creating this idea of that this individual is toxic. When with a few tweaks, a few changes, a few practices, disciplines, routines, they can, you know, easily shift that. So that's where you want to be careful. So poor communication is one of those things as well. Someone who's a poor communicator isn't necessarily toxic. So poor communication when it comes to a toxic person is the words they use, the actions, the tone, the, the posturing. Um, it also comes in, in the, um, form of lack of detail, lack of specifics, lack of instruction. Lack of support, lack of coaching, lack of motivation, lack of inspiration, lack of development. Those are when, you know, added on top of a number of these other things, not even all of them, but a number of these other things is definitely red flags should be going off that you have a toxic individual. When you're hearing from people that you're not being told, you know, what the expectations are. You're not being given detailed instructions. So every time you take something back to this individual, they're not happy with it. And they're, and then they grab it and say, I'm gonna do it myself. If, you know, to get it done right, I'm gonna have to do it myself. That's when, you know, alarms should be going off for hiring managers, HR managers, and for those employees that are being impacted by it. You, we're gonna talk about some remedies for you, but you're, you're gonna need to address them. Okay, because again, a toxic individual is so self-centered, is so solely focused on, you know, the goals and the achievements that they have in mind. They're not very self-aware and they're not in tune with the impact that they're having on other people. And in some cases, they don't care. They don't care about the impact. So how do you shake them out of that? And we'll talk about that in a few minutes. So a few others I wanna mention is favoritism, is having unrealistic expectations. So this could be a perfectionist, and perfectionism can often drive toxic behavior, but not solely on its own. So you ha— again, you wanna be careful there, but between favoritism, unexpected expectations, lack of recognition, which can also go back to poor communication. Lack of empathy, and you know, on top of that manipulation. Now, this is not an area I was guilty of, but manipulation is, you know, using deceit, using, you know, half-truths, lying, just, you know, overall, you know, manipulating of other people's feelings, other people's behavior, other people's decisions. You know, that is definitely not a red flag. That's like coming into red, purple, black. Where, you know, all the alarms should be going off if you have someone and you find someone that is guilty of that. One that can be misconstrued as toxic, but isn't on its own, is if someone has inconsistent behavior. If someone is fired up and working particular behavior one day and then not the next, if they're delivering one day and not the next, if they're collaborating one day and they're not the next, if they're You know, supporting people and they're not the next, but if they're just inconsistently showing up and how they're showing up, then it, that should be kind of, okay, I need to pay a closer attention here to see if any of these other traits and qualities can be layered on top of it and, and be creating a bigger issue than just inconsistent behavior on its own. Because again, I would say something like poor communication and micromanaging and inconsistent behavior on their own, someone could identify that as an issue with someone and ask them about it.
