Surrounded by toxicity
SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in Smartbrief on Workforce — tracks feedback from leading managers and HR practitioners. We run the poll question each Wednesday in our e-newsletter and feature analysis from SmartBrief on Workforce Senior Editor Mary Ellen Slayter on this blog.
Last week’s poll question: Would you describe any of your current co-workers as “toxic”?
- Yes, 76%
- No, 24%
An article on this very subject that Mitchell Kusy and Elizabeth Holloway wrote for this blog was last week’s most clicked summary by far, suggesting that it’s a pervasive concern. Still, I was shocked that three-quarters of you report working with a toxic person right now. How depressing.
What are some of the behaviors that prompted you to dub at least one of your colleagues with that label? Share your story in the comments to this post, and I’ll send a copy of Kusy and Holloway’s new book to person with the best one.
Image credit, iStock
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Posted by Josh on July 15th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I recently left a job due to a toxic co-worker. She bullied everyone and was always throwing her weight around to prevent others from succeeding. It seemed that she took pleasure out of berating employees in team meetings and once publicly exclaimed that she knew she was a “bi$%W”, and no one could do anything about it. HR failed to address the issue on two occassions, and I was tired of fighten her constant antics. Too much drama for my tastes! So now I’m on to greener pastures, but I still hear from former co-workers that she continues to be the toxic bull in the china shop.
Posted by Human Being on July 16th, 2009 at 8:48 am
One such toxic person is enough to pollute the whole pond. Imagine how many would have affected over the years and how many would have attempted to fight against would have landed up like me – fed up of non reactive and non-concerned top management and HR. I feel such people derive pleasure in others hardship, i call it a sadistic pleasure. I feel people who act along with them should also be punished. So the universe could learn lessons and not treat it as something that has to be hidden under the carpet. Universities should discuss about such attitudinal- behavioural problems as case studies. These people develop toxicity around them and internationally pollute people’s behaviours-which indirectly affects the productivity and efficiency of the organisation as whole. As inefficient people learn to dominate the business outcomes. If thought in detail about such people they actual follow the Darwinian principle, as they can’t outsmart people who are good at work or knowledge, they learn to create toxic environment for such people whom they fear would find out their in-capabilities of their survival in the organisation. Over the period they learn to find other people’s weakness and learn to use it as a favour to compel people to join them in conducting a massive scale toxicity. There is no simple way of eradicating such behaviours, unless organisations openly speaks about this and admits this to itself first and undertakes severe steps in eradicating such behaviors. If organisations are not able to learn lessons now and act on it promptly, the danger is that it will never act leading to collapse of organisational ethics there by organisational failure as in most organisations efficient and knowledgeable people are the building blocks of successful business.
Posted by Man in the Mirror — hr bartender on July 29th, 2009 at 6:44 am
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