In their book, Toxic Workplace!, Mitchell Kusy and Elizabeth Holloway define toxic personality as “anyone who demonstrates a pattern of counter productive, work behaviour that debilitate individuals, teams, and even organizations over the long term.” Harboring negative feelings could prove detrimental to not just others. It could linger within and ruin you, even without your knowledge.
I once had a manager for whom every meeting was a battle ground, an opportunity to demonstrate how he was better than others. Slowly but surely, people started avoiding him. When he began to speak, everyone would simply disengage. Work suffered initially, and the team, eventually. Some good people even left.
Time and again, we have been troubled by this question: what went wrong? What is it that made things go from bad to worse? Or worse, how do you know for sure that it was not your fault?
time to face the mirror
Heard somebody whispering and concluded that it was about you? Every time somebody at work is having a ‘personal’ conversation, do you feel the need to interfere and point out that they should be ‘working’? Somebody has an opinion that you do not agree with, do you stomp your feet and walk out of the room? Do you have a hard time appreciating others, but are quick at finding faults? These are just questions that you need to be true to. If the answer to any of these is a yes, there might just be the need to recalibrate.
the need to self-promote is masked
It all begins with a deep sense of insecurity often masked by your need to be right every single time. This plays out in different versions with different leaders, but the aftereffects are all the same. One single negative thought can ruin a beautifully crafted speech and a single doubt is usually the prime culprit. It brings along an unreasonable plague of thoughts that hits you with the pressure to succeed. But somewhere under the surface rests a fear.
This story is from the September - October 2018 edition of The Smart Manager.
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This story is from the September - October 2018 edition of The Smart Manager.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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