Toxic Work Culture: How to Recognise It and Protect Yourself While You Decide

One sentence from my book explains a toxic workplace better than any definition: everything we do, we do out of either fear or love. In the same passage I wrote that fear has long been a very efficient tool for manipulating crowds, because most of us were taught to worry from a young age. And I asked a simple question: have you ever solved a difficult situation by worrying alone?

A toxic work culture is what happens when a workplace starts to run on fear. People stop asking questions, protect themselves instead of the work and take the tension home every evening. If that sounds familiar, it isn't weakness and it isn't your imagination. In my book Courage on the Journey of Happiness, work belongs to the challenge Do What You Love, and this is its hardest version. If your job is fine and you simply want better days, start with how to be happy at work.

What is a toxic work culture?

A toxic work culture is a pattern, not an incident. Disrespect, fear, unfairness or hostility become the normal way things are done, and the people in charge tolerate them or even reward them. One rude colleague or a stressful month doesn't make a workplace toxic. A place where everyone knows who not to cross, and nobody expects anything to change, probably is.

People use toxic work culture and toxic work environment interchangeably, but it helps to separate them. The environment is what you live through every day: the tone of emails, the meetings, the silence when someone is humiliated. The culture is the set of unwritten rules that makes it normal, which is why changing desks rarely helps. The World Health Organization lists an “organizational culture that enables negative behaviours” among the risks to mental health at work, alongside authoritarian supervision and violence, harassment or bullying¹.

Signs of a toxic workplace

Donald Sull and his colleagues analysed more than 1.3 million Glassdoor reviews and found five elements with by far the largest negative impact on how employees rate their company's culture. They call them the Toxic Five². In everyday life they look like this:

• Disrespectful: people are belittled, ignored or humiliated, sometimes in front of others
• Noninclusive: some people count and others don't, depending on who they are rather than what they do
• Unethical: rules bend for the powerful, and honesty gets you into trouble
• Cutthroat: colleagues undermine each other and credit gets stolen
• Abusive: a manager shouts, threatens or punishes, again and again

Two quieter signs: mistakes are hidden because blame always lands somewhere, and you feel relief on Friday, dread on Sunday and rehearse conversations to protect yourself.

Fear or love: what is your workplace run on?

They say that everything we do, we do out of either fear or love.

At work, love isn't sentimental. It looks like care for the work, the people you serve, your colleagues and yourself. Fear looks like covering yourself, staying late so nobody can say you didn't, nodding in meetings you disagree with. Every workplace has both. A culture becomes toxic when fear makes most of the decisions. The question also shows you where you have started to act out of fear yourself, and that is the part you can change first.

What happiness research says about toxic workplaces

As an economist who has spent many years studying happiness, I find one number especially telling. Donald Sull, Charles Sull and Ben Zweig analysed 34 million online employee profiles to see who left their employers in the United States between April and September 2021. A toxic corporate culture was 10.4 times more powerful than compensation in predicting a company's attrition³. How people were treated said far more about whether they would leave than what they were paid.

Christine Porath and Christine Pearson have polled thousands of workers about incivility. In 2011, half said they were treated rudely at least once a week, up from a quarter in 1998⁴. In their poll of 800 managers and employees, among those treated rudely, 48% deliberately decreased their effort, 80% lost work time worrying about the incident and 12% said they left their job because of it⁵. Worry, again.

And how does it feel, hour by hour? Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, economist Alan Krueger and their colleagues asked 909 working women to reconstruct the previous day, episode by episode. Of all the people they spent time with, time with the boss brought the most negative feelings and less positive feeling than time with friends, family, clients or co-workers⁶. The authors noted that the people you interact with have a powerful influence on how you feel. In a toxic workplace, that influence is there every day.

How to deal with a toxic work environment: seven gentle steps

You can't change a culture on your own. But while you are in it, you can protect yourself and keep your options open.

1. Name it, in facts. Write down the date, what was said or done and who was there. Facts quieten the voice that asks whether you are imagining it, and they help if you decide to speak up.
2. Stop taking the culture personally. A workplace that runs on fear will make you feel small. The way you are treated says more about the culture than about your worth.
3. Keep your distance from the people who drain you. What I wrote about energy vampires applies at work too. You can't always avoid them, but you can keep conversations short, factual and in writing.
4. Find your allies. One or two colleagues you trust, and people outside work who remind you who you are. Toxic cultures isolate people; connection restores your perspective.
5. Practise a calm no. Toxic workplaces feed on people who can't refuse. If that is you, how to stop people pleasing is a good next step.
6. Use the proper channels. If something crosses a line, speak to HR, a manager you trust or a union representative, and bring your notes. Speaking up is not disloyalty; it is information the organisation needs.
7. Build your plan B now. In my book I describe someone with an unsatisfying job who decides they have had enough: they start looking around, give their best to the job they still have, learn new things and seek out inspiring people. They go to work knowing something better is around the corner.

One clear note: if work is affecting your health, or you are facing bullying or harassment, please speak to a doctor or another qualified professional, and to HR, a union or an employment adviser.

Should I stay or leave a toxic workplace?

There is no universal answer, but there are honest questions. Is the problem one person or the whole system? Did anything change after you, or others, spoke up? What is it costing you outside work: your evenings, your patience with the people you love, your weekends?

In my book I describe someone who refuses to keep working for an employer that can't value them as it should. They watch the situation at work, and when they sense they are stagnating and can't use their potential, they face the challenge and move to another job. Leaving isn't failure and staying isn't weakness, as long as you are the one deciding, not your fear. How to leave well deserves its own article.

Toxic work culture: what organisations can change

If you lead a team or work in HR, here is the hopeful part: culture is made of daily decisions, so daily decisions can change it. Leaders must root out what makes a culture toxic, and the data point first to disrespect, exclusion and unethical behaviour³. The WHO guidelines on mental health at work recommend organisational interventions, manager training and training for workers⁷. Amy Edmondson links psychological safety, a shared belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks in a team, to how well teams learn⁸.

I believe the first step is the simplest: ask people how they feel and think, and listen when the answer is uncomfortable. Perks can't fix a culture that runs on fear. Through The Institute of Happiness, which I founded in 2017, I give talks and workshops for organisations that want people to feel well at work.

A toxic work culture can make you forget who you were before you walked in. You don't have to fix the whole place to take yourself back: one honest look, one ally and one small plan are enough to start. If you'd like company on that path, my programme Permission for Life is about giving yourself permission to choose your own life, including how and where you work.