Toxicity Kills Teams and Your Success

What if the biggest threat to your workplace isn't out there somewhere, but staring back at you in the mirror? Or maybe it's that high potential team member you have such high hopes for. The day I realized I was the problem came long after I heard the words, you're fired. And that's the reality for many professionals who refuse to take a long, hard, brutally honest look at themselves in the mirror. And even at team members who they see as massive producers. If you're a leader or you aspire to be, that kind of blind spot can be dangerous. By the time I finally saw how I was feeding that toxic culture, it was too late to change the parts of the system that enabled it and enabled my behavior and to shield the people who were suffering because of it. But I definitely could change one thing. Thing. I could change me. But the kicker, the biggest difference between change and no change is you have to want to change. And I've learned that greatly, you know, just recently with a number of my clients. That's why this conversation is so important. In this episode, we're gonna be diving into this hidden signs of a toxic leader, team member, or even a culture. And what many leaders are ignoring when it comes to the red flags of toxicity and the strategies that you could be putting into place right now to create a culture shift that protects your people and fuels performance. So let's dive into it.

Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. With more than 25 years in corporate trenches, Bernadette's own journey from being dismissed as a tyrant boss to becoming a sought-after leadership coach and speaker illustrates the very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies, and stories. So if you're ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome, and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.

First off, Sheding the Corporate Bitch isn't just a catchy title. It is a reflection of a journey that I took to transform from a culture destroyer to a team builder, both in my work and my life. And unfortunately, it is a journey that many are needing to take across industries, across companies, across leadership teams, with a singular goal of transforming a toxic culture into a powerhouse culture. But nothing will change, as I mentioned earlier, unless you want it to change and are willing to do the hard work and demand the hard work of others as well. Now, let me briefly describe what I mean by the bitch. The bitch is not a person. Bitch is the toxic behavior of one that causes someone to be lashing out and projecting. Inappropriate behavior, especially in the workplace. So if you are doubting toxicity is a real issue in your company, let alone on your team, then let me share with you a statistic that definitely opened my eyes as well. In 2025, toxic workplace environments are projected to cost US businesses over $1 trillion just in the US due to increased turnover, reduced productivity, and diminished employee wellbeing. And that's according to an article published in January of this year on LinkedIn. Now, this also includes direct costs like employee replacement and indirect costs such as lost productivity and reputational damage. Now, you could be like me originally and remain totally oblivious to your own or someone else's behaviors that is causing the erosion of confidence, morale, and engagement of your team. Or you can do some serious reflections, and here are a few questions that I'd recommend that you consider. What does toxic behavior look like? How does it feel? What is the experience it creates for oneself as well as the people around them? What if any toxic behavior that you may project, is it protecting dysfunction or is it empowering the people around you? Are there team members that are initiating or enabling bad behavior? And are you willing to confront it, or will you avoid it when it happens? Are you thinking to yourself, I would never allow anyone to destroy the culture of my team? The reality is when profit and production are the singular focus of a business, of a leader, or of a team, then a lot of red flags are ignored. And that is doing more harm far beyond the company. So there are other questions that you really need to be considering, and that is, what if hard decisions do have to be made around someone's employment, yet they were never told about it? They were never coached around it. They were never given the opportunity for change. What if you did invest training, coaching, and support to that team member, but the issues still exist? The challenges still continue. Will you allow someone, anyone, including yourself, continue to damage the culture? As a powerhouse leader that I know you are, I am gonna say no, you would not allow that to happen. But in case there are some misunderstandings of what makes up a toxic culture, let's discuss it. Here are the hidden signs of a toxic individual or team. As an individual, if they are projecting favoritism amongst team members, putting someone first, giving them more opportunities, favoring them, listening to them as opposed to others, considering that they had the great idea, even if someone else on the team stated the same idea as they did, favoritism starts to erode morale and engagement. And overall satisfaction. And then there's microaggressions, those behaviors and those instances where someone cuts someone else off. A toxic individual is cutting someone off consistently, not allowing them to speak, not giving them the opportunity to engage. They can fall very closely to shame tactics, tactics around making jokes about someone's idea or their input. Or if someone does say something out of line or, or, or a mistake, they ridicule it, or they call someone out in the front of everyone, as opposed to pulling them aside and giving them coaching direction privately. Then there's always exclusion. And you might be able to feel that for yourself, not being invited to the meeting, not being invited to a business trip that your role typically would be part of. You are not involved on emails that you specifically need to support, need to take action on. Exclusion is also one of those toxic behaviors that could create a red flag to other behaviors that someone might be projecting. There's also the disagreements. You can't have them. If someone isn't allowing you to disagree with them, if someone's— is not allowing different points of view, if someone's not allowing debate and, and really healthy conflict, that will be a red flag that this individual might have toxic behaviors and might be eroding the culture of the team. And let alone if they're avoiding accountability. So it's going back to that favoritism. If all of a sudden certain team members are not doing their job, not pulling their weight, behaving in an inappropriate way, and yet someone doesn't call them out on it, someone doesn't hold them accountable, someone doesn't work to correct that. Yet if some other individual were to do it that might not be on that favorite list, they are disciplined around it or reprimanded around it. So avoiding accountability is also one that tied with these other behaviors can really create an environment that no one wants to work with. And then a couple of others would be someone who is more about discipline than coaching or discipline, you know, versus development. And they're just scolding, and that's in public or in private. And then of course, one that a lot of leaders tend to overlook for themselves, let alone for others, is a lack of empathy or a lack of emotional intelligence, lack of self-awareness. If someone is blind to their own behavior, blind to their, to their own dysfunction and the impact that it's having, the experience it's creating, for the people around them. Well, that combined with some of these other traits should definitely be sending you, HR, others red flags that you have an issue. Take a moment to really reflect on that list that I provided. Favoritism, microaggressions, shame tactics, exclusion, disagreements aren't allowed, avoiding accountability, disciplining versus coaching. Lack of empathy. Do you or others around you have any of those traits? Because even if there's just one of those traits, that's just going to exasperate other behaviors, other dysfunction that will ex— eventually do a major job on the morale and the success of your team. And so as leaders, we need to really be paying attention and observing in others as well as in ourselves whether or not we embody any of these behaviors. And if we do, then seeking out the support and the guidance and the feedback that is needed to make some changes. And it's so much easier to create a shift, create change or transformation early on than it is when things are avoided or ignored and they're just compiling and compiling. It's always easier to get it addressed upfront than it is to delay it or avoid it because you're going to be uncomfortable having to address it. You as a leader, that's your job is both for yourself and in others to address behaviors that are working for or against the success of the team. Now, the hidden signs that your team is going to project as a result of either a team member or you as the leader displaying toxic behavior is they're gonna shut down, period. They're gonna go silent. If you ever try to get 'em in a room to have an open dialogue conversation, let alone a difficult conversation, You're gonna hear crickets. And then there's a fear of retaliation that if they were to speak up, if they were to bring you an issue, if they were to bring you a, a challenge or a complaint, that it's gonna be held against them, that you're gonna make their life miserable, that it's going to be a ding against their, their performance. So if you see your team members kind of resisting opening up and being upfront and bringing to you issues or opportunities or challenges, you might wanna think to yourself, what is causing that? If you're seeing team members amongst themselves doing it, you need to ask yourself, what is causing that? And then typically, as some of those toxic behaviors are being projected and eroding the team, they're gonna start getting defensive. They're gonna start copying an attitude. They're gonna start not showing up, not being engaged. And so if you all of a sudden are sitting there going, well, why is Joe, you know, creating such an attitude with me? You might think about that it's not Joe, that it could be something else, some other factors amongst the team or with you. That is creating this sudden change in Joe that may not have been there before, but all of a sudden it's there. Individuals taking on these toxic behaviors are just going to feel beat up. They're going to feel stressed out, burned out. Their self-esteem is going to take a major hit because typically those with toxic behaviors are beating down the, the esteem and the value and the worth of an individual. Not, you know, going back to that microaggression, you know, only giving the negatives, never giving positives, not giving any feedback at all. And those things are going to just continue to beat down a team member. The lack of accountability amongst team members. That's a big one. If, if your team members are not willing to remind each other of their roles and responsibilities, of the goals, especially the shared goals of the team, and they're not willing to, you know, get messy and dig in to why some team members are having to pull more weight than others, that should be an indicator as well that there's a problem stewing. And you will want to address it as quickly and as effectively as possible. And a couple of other things would be another trait of someone who's toxic is they're not great communicators. They are more acting on emotion and they're not clearly communicating the goals and the expectations. And therefore there is this tug of war between potentially leader and employee, or even amongst team members. And therefore a lot of frustration, a lot of confusion, a lot of lack of clarity, which will create mistakes, things that are overlooked. And/or someone's just going to, like they do, going silent. They're just gonna go stagnant. And not even attempt to do anything more than what they need to do. So if your team goes silent, if your team is all of a sudden very compliant and not pushing back when in the past maybe they have, if your team is displaying fear of retribution or retaliation or discipline as a result of speaking up, using their voice, bringing up new ideas, creating, you know, new opportunities, and all of a sudden they're not, and they're going quiet and they're backing away and they're, you know, kind of being complicit, then that may indicate to you that there's a problem on the team. And now you have to look at, is it fellow team members or is it my relationship with them as a leader? To the, to the employees. And if those red flags, or you can look at it as a culture check light, is ignored, then that's where you're going to have that high turnover, low engagement. You're going to have a fear of anyone speaking up and expressing their views. They're going to, you know, not have a safe environment where they feel as if they can take risks and grow. As well as you're going to have very poor employee engagement or manager effectiveness, should you measure those things, and you're going to have ongoing conflicts. It's just going to continue to stew and then stir and then, you know, potentially get to a breaking point for yourself or for the, a team member and/or the team as a whole. And therefore you need to address that. You need to be bold and brave and courageous and very clear on addressing that. Now, a couple of episodes ago, we had a discussion regarding how HR is your superpower that you're ignoring. And this is a great opportunity if you're sensing that there is some toxic behavior that is doing damage. To the work that you're trying to get done each and every day, and that your team members are working to get done each and every day. This is a great time to engage them proactively upfront to say, all right, this is what I'm observing. What can you do to help me identify it, assess it, track it, and find solutions to it? And so you can take a look at ballifiercoaching.com/podcast for that episode of HR is the Superpower That You're Ignoring. If you have any doubt or you're curious about the health of your team, then one question to ask is, would your employees describe your culture the same way you do? And if not, why? So that's a great exercise for you to have with your team is for— allow all of you to sit down and write out what they feel and what they observe and what they experience as the culture of the team and share that amongst each other. Discuss it. See where the differences are. See where the opportunities are, but where the challenges are. See what the symptoms are. See where those red flags are flying high. Do what you can to really dig in and assess the health of your team and of the culture. Now let's talk about what you could be doing, what steps you could be taking in order to create this cultural shift, to break the cycle of any toxic behavior and work with your team and/or with yourself to really move forward to being high functioning. All right. The first one would be that you need to recognize that culture change is not operational, it's not structural, it's not organizational. It is inner work that needs to be done in order for someone to identify the behavior that is creating the toxic environment. And so whether that's through self-assessment, coaching, trigger tracking, or any other self-awareness practice, You really just want yourself and others to recognize that it's inner work that is going to need to be done in order to create change. Now, once you've recognized that, yes, it's inner work that needs to be done, the second thing that I strongly suggest one does is to gain a commitment and validate that commitment to change. What I mean by that is You need to ensure whether it's yourself or someone else that they recognize that there's behaviors that are working against them and there's behaviors that are working for them and they are willing and open to feedback, to critique, to accountability, to coaching, to making the changes necessary in order to improve the relationship they're having with each other, with themselves, and the role that, that they are responsible for. You need to ensure that their commitment is real. Now, why do I emphasize that so hard? As an executive coach, it pains me. It really pains me when you begin working with a client. And I, and I myself will certainly have a checklist of the things that they have to sign off on in regards to committing to change, committing to coaching, committing to feedback, committing to doing the work. And if one has a lot of lip service and verbally says, yes, I'm all in, I'm willing to do the work, I'm willing to you know, kind of get uncomfortable. That's one thing, but then their actions and behaviors and the change has to be there. Now, that's not gonna happen until you get that commitment, but what you wanna do is ensure that once someone agrees or recognizes that culture change requires inner work, they need to commit to it and you need to be convinced of their commitment toward it. Now you can't control whether or not they change, but that, that is their commitment, and therefore you can now hold them accountable as they move forward that the changes are occurring. So you rec— someone recognizes that they have to do inner work, they commit to the change, and now you might, through self-assessment, as I mentioned, 360s, coaching, identify, you know, a list of behaviors or traits that are hindering or hurting someone, and you identify even just one habit or one behavior that needs a shift, that will create a great impact to their overall performance, but overall engagement and collaboration with others, with other team members. Whether that is members of a team or it's the leader with the team. Identify one bad trait or behavior and commit to changing that or making adjustments to that behavior within a timeframe. Say, over the next 30 days, I'm gonna be focused on this one behavior and I'm gonna take these 3 steps in order to do so. For instance, You identify that your feedback that you've been given is that you're too curt, too direct, too abrasive in your communication style. Pretty harsh, right? Pretty harsh. But there's a good number of leaders, let alone team members, who are told that. So what do you do about it? Well, okay, so actions I'm going to take is I'm going to be more conscious of my communication style. I'm going to soften my approach. I'm gonna be more respectful and engaging. Now, those sound very, like, very toxic behaviors, but very damaging. You can't recoup from these type of behaviors if that is what's identified. Well, that's not true, but I'm gonna go back to number 2. You have to be committed to making the change. You have to be committed to recognizing that that's a detriment to your performance and to your career. You have to be willing to do the hard work. So we're going to say you have, and now you're going to identify that one behavior. You're going to identify 3 things you could be doing differently over the next 30 days, and you're going to start. Number 4 would be tracking, reporting, and assessing or adjusting the results of those actions. So you're tracking it. Maybe you have an accountability partner and you're asking them for feedback. You're asking them for, to pay attention and make observations regarding your, your focus in this one area. And now you're collaborating with them and, or you're tracking it yourself and you are making adjustments as you go. So for an example of this would be tactically would be one of the actions would, could be the communication by email. Make it a little, you know, less harsh, direct, abrasive, and therefore share your email with someone else prior to sending it, especially if it's, you know, going to a group of people or to a high-level person, or it's just an important email and have someone else review it and make recommendations for any adjustments that need to be made. I do this on a regular basis. You'd be surprised how often I look at people's emails. However, it teaches one, it coaches one how to present themselves and how to communicate more effectively. And I always say you want people to lean in, not back away. And therefore, if that toxic behavior is causing people to back away, then you need to make those adjustments and make those shifts. Okay? So start tracking, reporting, and making any adjustments needed. And then you want to, you want to engage people. You want to surround yourself with people that will inspire and support you, that will help you to learn, develop, and grow. And, you know, that will nurture your strengths while also holding you accountable to making these adjustments in these shifts. So you could do this for yourself, but if you also see a team member that is struggling and you're working with them and coaching them through the, this process, so the overall team culture is shifted into a more positive, constructive, engaging mode of operation, then ensure that you surround them or they surround themselves with people who will, you know, inspire, nurture them, but also hold them accountable. Now, as a leader, what you could also be doing is doing pulse checks, doing almost health checks on your team at the individual level and at the team level. And you might ask someone to do the same for you as far as giving you feedback, assessing where you are when it comes to, you your own performance, your own leadership. But those pulse checks would really be looking at ensuring the morale, the fulfillment, the satisfaction, the effectiveness, the productivity of the team. And so you don't want it, you know, to all of a sudden wake up to the fact that you need to do those after you lose some very valuable employees, whether that is issues amongst the team or it's because of you as the leader. So instead, you could be along the way, not just at mid-year and end of year, you could be along the way doing pulse checks on the health and viability of your team members and the team as a whole. And they, they could be 10, 15 minutes. You know, how are you? What do you need? Do you have everything? Is there anything that I could be doing? Is there a challenge you're having that I could provide some guidance on? Are you feeling challenged and motivated in the work that you're doing? And if not, what can we be doing differently to provide you those opportunities? They could be very short and sweet conversations to just ensure the health of your team members, which then collectively as the team will either make or break your success. Okay. So take pulse checks and then At the same time, allow your team members to do their own self-assessments. Make it a, you know, a group team exercise where maybe it's on a particular skill or behavior. Maybe it's about conflict management or about communication or about time management or about leadership, uh, team engagement, dealing with difficult conversations. And find a self-assessment, and you can even create one yourself that kind of gives them opportunities to assess where they are with a particular skill or particular behavior. And what you're doing here is you're really wanting to ensure that you're seeing proactively any breaks in, you know, your potential employee's performance. And any risks to them potentially leaving because of issues that you have yet to see or you've yet to address. So you want to be engaging a lot more proactively in order to do that. And again, keep in mind, I had mentioned a couple of episodes ago, we had an episode around how HR is your superpower that you're ignoring. That's the title of it. And so go back to ballofirecoaching.com/podcast. And download that because it's a good discussion around how HR could be your partner in, in handling and helping to solve any type of cultural issues you have, even when it has to do with you directly. And they're there to support you and give you the tools and the resources needed to improve And nothing's better than you going to them asking for help than them coming to you saying you need help. To recap, recognize the fact that changing culture starts with inner work, making sure there's commitment to change, to doing hard work to make sure that they— someone does change, and then identifying the habits or behaviors that are working against one. And putting some actions in place to, to start realizing change. Time block it if need be. Track, report, account, and adjust anything that's not working while you're, you're leveraging what is working. And then surround yourself with inspiring, engaging, nurturing individuals that will help support you and hold you accountable. We all need accountability. Take pulse checks, uh, of your team members, of yourself, in order to ensure that you really have a handle on the health of your, of your team. While you can also have them doing individual self-assessments and blind spot assessments to make sure that not only are you getting visibility to any slight risks of retention, but more so that there just isn't a blind spot that hasn't been uncovered that is hurting a team member that needs to get addressed. And all of these things are meant to work for the team, not against them. They're meant to work for the leader, not against them. And so you ensure as a leader, you're not avoiding or backing away or ignoring problem children. And, and you're actually proactively, productively, effectively providing the tools and the resources and the guidance needed in order to shift any type of toxicity that may exist or has already started really eroding the culture of the team. One other big consideration that I need you to think about is Your culture might not have an issue, yet at the same time, you are so burned out, so stressed, so exhausted that you just aren't sure even how to manage, develop, and grow your team to be a high-functioning team. And if that's the case, and that is a simple call or a simple reach out to me and let's talk. You can go to coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall. And let's have a conversation about it. The pace of business today is so chaotic. It actually is overwhelming when I even talk to many of my clients and look at, literally look at the minimal white space that they have on their calendars to even address any type of team issues that they're having. So don't feel as if you're alone. Don't go at it. Alone, engage your HR team, and then also feel free to reach out to me and get some tips and advice and some strategies for moving forward. So you can be that powerhouse leader and develop that powerhouse team that will drive you into the future. Again, you can go to coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall to schedule some time, and I'll be more than happy to give you those tips and strategies. Because what I want for you is the result of what a rich, healthy, high-functioning culture looks like. It means that you have trust amongst all team members, that people are willing to speak up. They want to speak up. They want to contribute. They want to challenge. They want to debate and innovate because they know that that means that there is also continued change in the business as well. They recognize that everyone's included. And the fact that inclusion isn't a one-off, it is a daily behavior. It's a daily practice. It's a kind of assumed way of doing business is including all the differing opinions, all the differing backgrounds, all the differing viewpoints, all the differing ideas that your collective team members have and are just sitting there itching to want to contribute and add value to the organization. So be sure that you are leading with courage, you're leading with boldness, you're leading with confidence, you're leading with transparency, that you're leading knowing that Your team will have your back if you have their back. Your team will go over and beyond if you value them and you recognize them and you provide them the opportunities to stretch themselves. And you don't need to be cautious or micromanaging or, you know, helicopter mom or dad because you trust them completely. To take on whatever work, let alone new challenge, new opportunity that there is to advance the team and the business. And the fact that you want to be a champion of healthy cultures, you want to champion empowerment, you want to champion at whatever level you're at, you want to champion that everyone wakes up and loves going to their job. You wanna become a toxic culture destroyer and not accept it from yourself or anyone else throughout your business. And if you do that, then you will be that powerhouse leader that others want to work for, others want to follow, others want to make successful because they know that they'll be successful as well. One last Warning, change doesn't happen overnight. I often have to tell clients, especially as I'm getting into coaching engagements, that it's taken 30, 40, 50, 60 years in some cases for people to learn and ingrain their behaviors. So it's going to take time, not that much time, but it's going to take time to undo those behaviors, those traits. And therefore it's going to require a commitment, an investment, patience, compassion, and just ongoing, consistent, and persistent support if you want to see real change. So I have one call to action for you. If you want to become, and you're ready to become, a powerhouse change agent, then share this episode with your colleagues, with your team members, even with your HR partner, and start having those brave conversations around whether or not toxicity exists, what it looks like, what the impacts of it is or could be to your team and the culture. And the steps you can be taking in order to prevent it or eradicate it. Make it a collective conversation, a collective solution to a collective problem for the entire business. And be sure to follow, rate, and review the show and let us know what can we be addressing for you so you and your team can be the powerhouses that you're meant to be. I'll look forward to having you right back here for another episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Bye.

Thank you for tuning into today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Every journey taken together is another step towards unleashing the powerhouse leader within you. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Wanna dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoaching.com to learn more about about how she helps professionals, HR executives, and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and keep leading.