How to be happy despite a toxic work climate

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

A toxic office environment not only interferes with productive work, but can also ruin physical and mental health. In this case, a toxic environment is not understood as a violation of SanPiN, but a "rotten" psychological climate in the team.

A toxic environment negatively affects the quality of your work and, as a result, your future career. And if you are a leader, then for all members of your team and for their careers too.

Toxicity, or negativity, in the workplace can take on a variety of guises, including bullying, micromanagement, mismanagement, aggressive behavior, and total mistrust among team members. If all of this requires you to make a titanic effort to go to work, the problem must be solved!

At first glance, it may seem that the best solution would be to combat this very toxicity. However, if you are already suffering from an unhealthy work environment, then most likely you will not be able to change that environment.

The causes of toxicity can be associated exclusively with the personality of the boss or one of the colleagues, but most often - when it comes to the level of the entire office or organization - they are systemic in nature and are complemented by the peculiarities of the corporate culture (or lack thereof). Such problems are not solved by teambuilding and calling a wizard coach.

In such a situation, first of all, you need to protect yourself, because a toxic office is not just a few nasty colleagues / subordinates and / or low-sighted bosses.

This article will be useful to those of our readers who suffer from an unhealthy psychological climate in the team and who want to be prepared for the unexpected at work, as well as those who themselves are the cause of a toxic environment, but do not realize it.

How a toxic office is ruining your life and career

First, you can get seriously ill, and it's not about the flu during a seasonal epidemic. Science has shown that high levels of the stress hormone dramatically increase the chances of getting a heart attack or stroke.

Second, a poor psychological environment in the office increases the risk of depression. And clinical depression is a very serious condition that can be difficult to cope with.

Third, it is demotivating. When our surroundings are mired in negativity, staying alert, work-focused, and highly motivated can be challenging.

How to know if your workplace is toxic, not yourself

Sometimes it's difficult to immediately understand: is there something wrong with your job or do you just hate it and that is why everything around you seems toxic to you? Let's try to figure it out.

Try to answer 10 questions honestly.

1. Does the thought of going to the office make you stressed?

2. Do management and colleagues make decisions, act and make judgments about each other, based on a set of some unwritten rules and clichés?

3. The company is most of all like a checkpoint with a “turntable”: people constantly come and go, and is staff turnover an epidemic?

4. Have you personally experienced an aggressive attitude towards yourself or even outright bullying from your colleagues, or have you observed it from the outside?

5. Do colleagues and management avoid openly discussing sensitive issues, preferring gossip and whispering behind each other's backs?

6. Do you feel uncomfortable in situations where you have to argue with colleagues or a supervisor about work issues, and therefore try to avoid such situations?

7. Are you and / or your colleagues pessimistic about new ideas?

8. In the organization where you work, no one trusts anyone?

9. Are there several “clans” hostile to each other in the office?

10. Do you have a private chat room in a "cart" where some colleagues throw mud at others?

If you answered yes to almost all of the questions, especially 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7, then your place of work is indeed toxic. And then we'll talk about how to deal with this.

Let's divide protective measures into three stages: before work, in the office, after work.

Before you go to work

Don't read work mail before the start of the work day. If you are really sick of your workplace, then anything connected with it can ruin your mood right in the morning, without adding a single drop of efficiency. This will prevent you from completing work tasks, but it will spend additional time on negative thoughts. Do you need it?

Start your day with small victories. Instead of lounging in bed with your phone, get up quickly, do your exercises, and try to get out of the house on time. Also, don't be lazy to make your bed. Psychologists say it builds confidence that you are in control of your day, and like other small victories, it energizes and stimulates you to do big things in the workplace.

Think about five things you love your job for. Complete this list. Even the smallest pleasant moments will help you to tune in a positive mood and cope with a toxic environment.

In the office

Stay away from conflicting colleagues. Perhaps you spend too much time talking with these people, and it is easy to get infected with negative attitudes towards anything. A couple of joint smoke breaks - and you already start to think that everything is bad, business is dying, people are not appreciated here, and you don't want to do anything. Moving away from a toxic friend, do it gradually, without sudden movements, without provoking him to jealousy and aggression.

Make friends with coworkers who try to stay positive despite toxic environments. Normal, adequate people should stick together and support each other.

Develop new skills. At the same time, focus on the knowledge and skills that you objectively lack, both for career development and for confronting a toxic environment. This will help keep you motivated in your current job and come in handy when changing jobs.

Move focus. Every time you have to deal with negative manifestations, try to treat it not as proof of a depressing situation at work, but as a life experience from which you can theoretically derive some benefit.

To do this, take a deep breath and use those few seconds to switch from the negative aspect of what is happening to something more positive.

Even if you don’t get any benefit from such a situation, abstracting from it, you can at least save energy and reduce stress levels.

Keep your work area clean and tidy. This will help you feel safe and resist the chaos around you. Plus, just like with a made bed, cleaning your work area instills confidence and gives you the illusion of being in control.

After work

Maintain your distance. It is very important to separate yourself as a person and your work, because this way you protect yourself from unnecessary stress and relax in a more comfortable environment. A sport or hobby that you really enjoy helps you switch from work to yourself.

Have your escape plan with you. The confidence that you know where to go if the situation in the team becomes completely unbearable allows you not to feel trapped in your current place. Therefore, do not be lazy to update your resume on HH so that you are always ready to send it to a potential employer at the right time.

Take care of your leisure time. Namely, make it more meaningful. Instead of flipping through social networks and dumbing down on YouTube until you feel sleepy, start reading books and meditating. And the simplest thing: take a shower or bath when you get back from work after a hard day. Firstly, it relaxes, and secondly, figuratively speaking, it helps to "wash away" unpleasant sensations.

However, before implementing the above recommendations, consider whether you yourself are the source of negativity.

How to know if you are toxic and what to do about it

Toxic people are found even in the healthiest of communities. How to work with a toxic person and not get infected, we talked in detail here in this article.

Now let's talk about how to recognize the poison in yourself, before it ruins your career.

Alarm call number 1. You only talk about yourself

Attracting attention to your person is characteristic of the absolute majority of people. But there is a limit to everything. Perhaps you are having a difficult period in your life, you are experiencing a painful breakup, or one of your relatives is seriously ill. Maybe you are unsure of your professional fitness. It doesn't matter what exactly underlies the feelings of anger, depression and anxiety deeply hidden in the depths of your consciousness - all these experiences can be expressed through your behavior in the team through constant conversations about yourself. Moreover, at the most inopportune moment, for example, during the discussion of the budget for the next year or the story of a neighbor in open space about his vacation in Bali.

What to do about it? Learn to listen. The next time you interact with coworkers, try to talk as little as possible and do not interrupt. And when you feel a strong desire to translate the conversation into your own person or share your own opinion, even if no one asked him, make an effort on yourself and ask someone an appropriate question on the topic. And of course, do not forget to listen carefully to the answer. Do this more often, and people will feel much more comfortable being in the same workspace with you.

Alarm call number 2. Passive-aggressive behavior

This is a classic example of toxic behavior at work. “Yes, you work harder than anyone else, except for those cases when you don’t do anything” - a compliment, on the contrary, designed to offend and offend a colleague, but not to such an extent that he could give a worthy and adequate rebuff.

What to do about it? If this demeanor has been inherent in you for a long time and you show it constantly, then it will not be easy to change it. First of all, you need to understand what lies behind such behavior. Very often, passive aggressiveness is part of a defense mechanism that kicks in when you need to hide anxiety, jealousy, or self-doubt.

Alarm call number 3. Envy of someone else's success

You can express jealousy through passive-aggressive behavior, “congratulating” a co-worker for a promotion with ostentatious sarcasm, or whispering behind him, it doesn't matter. Any manifestation of envy of others' success is toxic.

What to do about it? At the root of jealousy is insecurity. Try to understand that the success of the other should not interfere with your own. Strive towards your goals and stay focused, then you will feel more confident and will be able to respond with dignity to the achievements of others.

Concern about others' accomplishments distracts you from your own goals and career, so try to refrain from sarcasm and redirect the energies of your envy towards something positive.