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How To Identify Toxic Behaviors And Course Correct To Ensure Your Team’s Success

Forbes Coaches Council

Eric Beaudan and Tracy Cocivera are Partners in the Leadership Advisory Practice at Odgers Berndtson.

Toxic behaviors pose an enormous threat to organizational effectiveness, in part because they can exist at all levels of an organization. The other complicating factor is that even some of the most competent, productive people can exhibit negative, distracting behaviors. No matter where it's coming from, it's leadership's responsibility to pinpoint and correct toxicity before it spreads throughout the workforce.

How Toxic Behaviors Can Degrade Teams

Within the workplace, toxic conflicts can escalate to create a negative environment that affects all employees. Take this example.

One of an organization’s top-producing teams, which had been in place for more than a decade, was suddenly struggling. As the CEO and CHRO dug deeper, they discovered there was a conflict between members—two in particular. It wasn’t unusual for these individuals to make passive-aggressive comments at team meetings, tell their direct reports to ignore the other's requests or even try to sabotage each other’s work. The executives knew ignoring the problem wasn’t an option. The other team members, as well as colleagues who were aware of the toxic conflict, were deeply affected by what was going on. A failure to act would undermine faith in the CEO and senior leadership.

The CEO contemplated whether she could move one or both of the toxic team members. However, the organization was highly dependent on this top-producing team, and both leaders involved were seen as industry experts. So the CEO had deep concerns that this change would destabilize the team. She also knew that removing but not addressing the problem directly had the potential to spread the toxicity to other parts of the company.

Herein lies the challenge that comes with persistent toxic behavior in the workplace. Left unchecked, toxicity tends to spread and becomes more embedded in team functioning and organizational culture. Eventually, team members begin to pick sides while others resent the fact that nobody is dealing with the root of the problem. This undermines the ability to create a collaborative culture and enhance employee engagement.

Toxic Red Flags

How can senior leaders recognize toxic environments? There are certain situations and behaviors that, when taken together, are fairly accurate at diagnosing a toxicity problem.

• Lack Of Candid Dialogue: Highly effective teams collaborate on solutions, share ideas and welcome feedback. But if team members are afraid of the negative reactions they might receive from a toxic colleague, communication and co-creation shut down. If you've noticed or heard some employees are feeling stifled or ignored, this may be a sign of a toxic dynamic.

• Playing The Blame Game: When experiencing a setback, high value-creating teams share responsibility and work quickly to learn from mistakes and devise solutions. Teams that are plagued with toxic personalities, however, tend to point fingers to escape personal accountability. This results in a lack of action and persistent issues.

• Overly Cynical Attitudes: If a team is consistently negative when discussing challenges and outcomes, you have a problem with toxicity. Even one or two very negative people can severely drag a team down.

• Increased Burnout: Are there a lot of people on your team complaining about being disengaged or burned out? Have any disclosed physical or mental health issues that they feel are arising from work-related stress? These are the clear signs of the collateral damage that toxic behavior can inflict on a team.

• Different Camps Or Cliques: When you walk into a meeting, do you see small cliques or different camps being created? Do they speak only to each other and ignore others in the room? This may indicate a fractured team, which could stem from toxic behaviors.

How To Defuse Toxic Scenarios

If you can tell there's a toxicity problem, how should you address it without blowing up your team? Try these strategies.

• Name the toxic behavior and communicate your expectations. If team members are stepping over a red line, it’s important to communicate that clearly to each executive and to the broader team. You must raise the issue in a fair and objective manner. Hear that particular executive out, but make it clear that you want this issue resolved. Remember, this isn't a situation where you can fight fire with fire. Responding aggressively will only spark more toxic behavior.

• Use positive inquiry to promote change. Neuroscience tells us that giving people negative feedback leads them to disengage, which prevents learning and change. Focus on creating positive scenarios where conflict-generating executives and their teams can create something together. Creating a shared vision can be a much more impactful driver for change than negativity.

• Bring in an objective third party. It’s not always possible to spot toxic behavior with the naked eye, especially when teams have been stewing in it for a long time. In those instances, it's important to consider having someone—like a team coach or external consultant—point out a team's specific issues and identify the behaviors that are the source of toxicity. This third-party input can help dig deeply into team dynamics to find the sources and triggers for conflict.

Toxic behavior is not a problem that goes away on its own, especially because it requires a self-awareness that is often missing from the executives in question. It's important for CEOs and other senior leaders to look for warning signs and demonstrate a willingness to engage with the problem and find a solution. Otherwise, they could lose the support and confidence of the very people they are trying to lead.


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