Warning Signs You Might Have a Toxic Culture And What To Do About It

Toxic culture is the biggest risk facing every organisation today. Yet many senior leaders - despite there being a story about culture every week in the media - are refusing to take it seriously. There are many recent examples of toxic culture in Australia that have not only caused physical and psychological harm to employees, but also significantly damaged the reputation of the organisations (and those that govern them) who were complicit in allowing the conditions to arise.

These include Rio Tinto, Sony Music Australia, Country Road Group, Parliament and most recently - and very publicly - at Nine News Group. In every one of these organisations, the warning signs were evident to senior leaders and board members, yet their inaction (or apathy) meant that toxic culture - and the glare of the media spotlight - became an eventuality.

What is toxic culture?

For the benefit of clarity, a person can consider a culture to be toxic if they witness or are subject to, one or more of the following elements:

• Bullying
• Harassment
• Racism
• Sexism
• Misogyny
• Misandry
• Homophobia
• Age-ism
• Unwanted physical contact
• Verbal or emotional abuse
• Lack of workforce diversity
• Non-inclusive
• Inequity of pay
• Inequity of conditions
• A lack of trust
• Fear
• Favouritism
• Employee monitoring
• Micromanagement

If just one of these elements is evident, then it is enough to bring an organisation - and its leaders - to the media's attention and to undermine safety for those that work there, performance and results. Yet it needn't be this way.

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What are the warning signs of toxic culture?

Here are five warning signs that a culture maybe about to become toxic and actions that leaders can take to mitigate them:

There's no culture strategy

You get the culture that you choose to build. Vibrant, respectful, high-performance culture doesn't just build itself because you have a good structure and talented people in those roles. It takes time, money, effort and a structured approach to build a sense of belonging amongst staff. If you're not spending money on it, then you can expect it to degrade.

ACTION TO TAKE: Actively define the culture required to deliver your strategy.

There are different rules for senior leaders

Poor behaviours from senior leaders are one of the biggest generators of toxic culture. This was certainly true of Sony Music Australia. Yet often, boards and HR turn a blind eye to these, insisting that ‘that’s just who they are’ or ‘that’s what they need to do to get a reaction’. If you're allowing an individual (or individuals) to compromise the environment for everybody else, then employees make take matters into their own hands.

ACTION TO TAKE: Ensure that senior leaders are role models for the culture you wish to see.

You don't actively monitor culture (or ignore the results)

If you don't monitor your diet, exercise or working habits, there's a good chance you'll get sick. The same is true for culture. If you aren't actively listening to your employees, understanding the key themes, working with them on the plan to address the issues and then acting on the plan, then there's a good chance that the culture will slowly rot.

ACTION TO TAKE: Regularly ‘take the pulse’ of your culture and act decisively on the feedback provided.

You're losing good people

A culture is only as good as its people and if the ones leaving the organisation are the very people required to maintain its performance, then there's usually a reason. Even if there are limited opportunities to progress, great people will rarely leave a great culture. So if the people you'd want to keep are heading for the exit, find out why.

ACTION TO TAKE: Ensure that you have exit interviews to understand why good people are leaving.

Nobody ever gets sacked

In any organisation - even the best ones - there are usually 5% of employees who either don't want to show up and do a good job, aren't very good at it or else actively disrupt the ones that want to succeed. If you're not performance managing these people and showing the worst of them the door, then this will reflect back onto the rest of the culture. The culture is only ever as good as its worst employee.

ACTION TO TAKE: Be good at performance management and take a zero tolerance approach to poor behaviour.

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By taking these five actions, leaders can ensure that they are actively managing the risk of a toxic culture as well as investing in its positive evolution for years to come. However, culture is perpetually changing, and without a continued focus on it, the conditions for toxicity will never be far away.