Toxic Workplace: Ask Yourself These 3 Questions

Leaders have a crucial role in establishing the workplace's culture. Effective leadership makes creating an atmosphere of harmony and trust more manageable. Similarly, a contentious and backstabbing team indicates leadership behaviours that have been encouraged or, at the very least, let persist.

You must assess the issue and seek to improve the team's culture if you are heading a toxic team, whether you have been in your position for a long time or are just assuming it. Here are three prevalent issues that frequently lurk behind team members that are unable to work together:

Are they in the right seats?

Numerous books on leadership include the word trust and discuss how poorly performing teams lack mutual trust. Unfortunately, trust only entails the conviction that those around you will honour their agreements. Therefore, nothing can be done to foster trust among team members.

You may begin by ensuring that your team members are capable of performing their duties and are assigned to positions that allow them to utilise their skills. On many toxic teams, at least a few individuals are poor at their tasks. Identifying these low performers and creating a plan to either enhance their skills or move them to alternative jobs within the business or out of the organisation requires significant effort. As a result, they remain in their positions and continue to impede progress.

It would be best if you began by closely examining the performance of team members. Are they performing well? Do they execute the assigned responsibilities on time? If not, meeting with those folks and establishing clear goals for their performance is necessary. If this requires further training or mentoring, you must also provide for it. You must be willing to provide them with an accurate evaluation of their skills and then hold them accountable for improvement.

It also suggests that you need to reassign some roles. For instance, individuals are frequently promoted to supervisory positions due to their skills as individual contributors. However, a person's success in sales, financial analysis, or customer service does not guarantee they will be a competent supervisor. Find them a mentor who will work with them to enhance their abilities. However, you may discover that someone has been assigned a role that does not match their skills (and they do not appear to be growing into the role); thus, reorienting their tasks will allow them to flourish.

As you place the fitting individuals in the proper places, you will likely observe that team members' trust grows.

Is there any bad apple?

Obviously, not everyone can work well with others. The more people you employ, the higher the probability that you will find one who does not operate in the group's best interests.

It's important to pay attention to what individuals say about their coworkers. You may be working with a narcissist if they constantly claim credit for others' efforts and point fingers when things go wrong. Because of how proudly they flaunt their success, these people frequently appear to be gifted at first. Over time, however, they deplete their colleagues' enthusiasm since they focus on improving their reputation at the expense of recognising that of others. Narcissists need your guidance to see how beneficial it is to get along with others (and work to move them off the team if they do not take your counsel to the heart).

There's also a chance that others will mistreat you in other ways. Their interactions with others may show their biases. They may also misbehave, for example, by sexually harassing coworkers or being abusive to those who work with them. It would be best if you took immediate action when you or someone you know experienced a terrible interaction because of someone else's poor behaviour.

You'll need to do two things. Please communicate with the employee immediately to clarify that this is unacceptable behaviour. The next step is to consult with human resources to learn more about how such incidents are recorded for future reference if an employee needs to be terminated.

What is the reward?

Even though the majority of team members are competent and produce high-quality work, it is possible that they need to work better together. In this circumstance, it is essential to recall a fundamental leadership principle:

People pay attention to what you say, what you do, and what you reward in reverse order in any organisation.

When people do not get along, there is a strong possibility of misalignment between what you have told your team members about how you want them to engage and what others are visibly doing and what is rewarded.

For instance, you could request that individuals provide critical input on impending strategic initiatives to identify potential issues in advance. However, if no one ever criticises in meetings, most group members would begin to believe that criticism is not accepted. People are also attentive to who is receiving compliments, promotions, and opportunities. If you disregard complaints when they are expressed or become defensive when challenged, people will quickly realise there is no incentive to provide you with the requested feedback. If you encourage individuals who typically agree with you, you undermine what you have asked for.

In general, if you do not receive the desired behaviour from your team, there is a high likelihood that nobody is visibly performing what you requested and that you are rewarding people for doing anything other than what you asked for.

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