Signs Of A Toxic Company Culture

Work is central to our lives. If you work a full-time job, then your work consumes over a third of your waking hours every week-even more if you’ve got a long commute or if working from home has extended the hours you’re “on call.” The amount of life occupied by your occupation is massive-too massive to be spent working in a toxic environment.

But 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 article, 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

The first sign of a toxic company culture is a top-down leadership style. We’ve known for decades now that-with very few exceptions-the best leaders have a transformational or servant leadership style that seeks to empower teams and individuals in their organization. Smart leaders know they alone aren’t as smart as everyone, and so they seek input from everyone even if they end up making the final decision. But despite this well-documented finding, too many organizations still suffer from leaders who overweight their own insights and seek compliance with their directions over…