Toxic Workplace Quiz

🔹 The highly supportive, human-first organization has reached its full potential as a workplace grounded in trust, empathy, and dignity. Both leaders and team members feel a deep sense of personal responsibility to contribute. They are driven by a commitment to not only add value but to continuously strive for excellence in their efforts. Core values are practiced every day and uncivil behavior is swiftly noticed and addressed.

🔹 People feel genuinely heard and appreciated, confident that their contributions are recognized and that they can safely speak up about areas that need improvement. This creates an environment where honest feedback is actively encouraged and rewarded.

🔹 The bonds between colleagues go beyond typical working relationships. They are collaborating and supporting one another in ways that foster deep mutual respect and loyalty. These bonds create a unique environment where personal investment in the well-being of one's peers translates into a collective commitment to organizational success.

🔹 The supportive workplace has the building blocks of a positive culture firmly in place. Accessible systems for reporting misconduct, conflict resolution, and accountability are actively used.

🔹 Leaders model ethical behavior and accountability. Behavioral expectations are regularly communicated, and employees generally feel safe, valued, and engaged with the team's mission.

🔹 Collaboration and inclusion are prioritized, but there's room for improvement in incentivizing prosocial behavior and making it a core part of everyday operations.

🔹 The coping organization is functional but cracks are starting to show. Employees do their jobs but are not invested in the long-term success of the organization. Discretionary effort, where employees independently address gaps is seldom seen, reinforcing the company's stagnant state.

🔹 Employees are not actively encouraged to engage in prosocial behaviors like standing up for a colleague or reporting misconduct. Moreover, when they do exhibit these behaviors there is no appreciation, leading to a sense that ethical behavior is not valued.

🔹 There's a noticeable absence of connections between employees. Teams may collaborate out of necessity but not with a spirit of shared goals or mutual respect. Employees feel separated from both their peers and the broader mission of the organization.

🔹 Signs of dysfunction are evident, with unreasonable expectations, conflicting priorities, inconsistent accountability, and perpetual chaos. There is some awareness of the problems, but no structured approach to addressing them. Missing feedback loops from the frontlines to leadership prevents meaningful improvement.

🔹 Solidarity through mutual suffering may be displayed as employees use shared cultural references to cope with stress and challenges. Acknowledging the dysfunctional nature of their situation creates a sense of unity in the face of adversity, allowing people to express their frustrations in ways that build camaraderie instead of rivalry.

🔹 Struggling is a precarious state. Once the thin red line from solidarity to blame and distrust has been crossed, the organization shifts into a space that is hostile, toxic, and destructive. At that point, mutual support is replaced by suspicion and animosity.

🔹 Distrust and undermining define the workplace culture. Toxic behaviors are widespread and unchecked, creating an environment where self-preservation takes precedence over both human decency and work performance. People are driven by fear rather than purpose, operating in a state of hypervigilance to avoid becoming the next target of the shaming, smearing, and scapegoating that is the norm.

🔹 Connections between colleagues are either shallow or completely absent, with individuals frequently being ganged-up on. The culture fosters rivalry, division, and exclusion. Misconduct is rarely reported, as employees have no confidence in the organization's ethics or integrity. Those who might otherwise stand up against the mistreatment of others fear retribution, allowing toxicity to fester.

🔹 This environment is particularly difficult for highly-empathic people, and they will flee if possible. As people flee, a self-perpetuating cycle takes hold. With each departure, the remaining workforce increasingly reflects those who are either indifferent to or, worse, revel in these tactics.

🔹 Authority figures and gatekeepers with dissocial inclinations thrive, using favoritism, triangulation, intimidation, and deceit to widen their sphere of control, pitting colleagues against each other. In this environment without accountability mechanisms, they engage in self-serving behaviors and coerce others without concern for ethical boundaries. These individuals are seen not as disruptive, but as high-performers and necessary to "get results," perpetuating a cycle where toxic behavior is rewarded.

🔹 Employees who don't display the proper enthusiasm in kissing these kings' rings are likely candidates to be the next target, facing blame, character assassination, verbal abuse, public humiliation, shunning, and sabotage. These tactics are designed to erode their confidence, isolate them from support, and undermine their professional standing, as well as sending a reminder to bystanders to conform.

🔹 Bystanders are harmed vicariously, creating a ripple effect of grief and moral injury. Witnesses feel helplessness, anger, guilt, and a shared sense of injustice. The strain of watching the devaluation of colleagues without the means to intervene leaves people in a constant state of fear and distress.

🔹 The shift in the social fabric raises the proportion of bad actors within the organization, further normalizing dissocial behavior and weakening resistance to unethical actions. Like begets like, and those who thrive in toxic environments gain more power and choose compliant replacements for those who've fled. This accelerating imbalance entrenches toxicity in the organization, actively eroding mental health, and creating a predatory atmosphere that is a malignant space for everyone within it.