Your role in a toxic work environment

Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner and SharkTank extraordinaire, was hit with devastating news.

The normal straightforward, cut to the bottom-line type of guy experienced his own medicine. Sports Illustrated exposed his team’s “corrosive workplace culture” over a twenty-year span in an article earlier this year.

Yet, here’s what most people are missing in the discussion.

Workplace environment is more than how you treat the other gender or how diversified your workforce is. That’s what the surface level discussion is. This is what’s really going on.

First, people project their subconscious inadequacy on to others. This shows up in a variety of ways.

A leader is afraid a team member won’t bring the project in on time and thus won’t delegate tasks. The leader does not want to be perceived as having a team that failed at something. This shows employees they are undervalued.

When a problem comes up on a project, a leader tells the team what to do instead of allowing the team members to identify and co-create potential solutions. This creates limited visions for problem-solving.
A team-lead yells at a team member for no reason. The team-lead is actually having personal issues at home and takes it out on someone else. Being on the receiving end of someone else’s anger does little for office morale.

Second, most people tolerate mistreatment.

Most people put up with being treated unfairly. Employees fail to teach others how they want to be treated. When this occurs, a leader never even realizes something bad has happened.
Employees are more willing to share common issues with fellow employees yet fail to let management know there is an issue. A leader cannot change what they are unaware of.

Toxic environments come in many forms. We all have work to do here. It’s time to take a deep dive.

1) What are you projecting onto other people, at work or at home?

2) What behavior do you tolerate?

Toxic environments come in multiple forms; those who create and those who tolerate it.

Wishing you an abundant, joyful and prosperous day!