The UGLY truth about working in a toxic work environment

so here's the question for you have you ever gone into work and thought one day this freaking place is going to be the death of me oddly enough you might not be wrong you may be dead right welcome to the channel leadership with mike on this channel i help managers become more confident leaders and i do this with no nonsense sense if that makes any sense so get your kfe because we're getting into this one because we are talking about a toxic work environment now you might be saying mike maybe you're being a touch dramatic maybe it's really not going to be the death of me and let me explain this to you working in a toxic work environment plays a huge part in your mental health well-being or not well-being things like depression anxiety stress fatigue and literal sickness are just a few issues that can come from working in a toxic work environment now the question may be are you working in a toxic work environment or you just have bad days or is it just something you know you're not a fan of where you work that's totally different than your workplace being toxic if you don't like your job if you don't like the people you work with i get that it's still not necessarily going to be a healthy situation that you're in but it doesn't mean it's necessarily toxic so let's look at a few of the things that will make your workplace a toxic workplace so these are the signs the first one how often are you sick and are you actually sick where you can't get out of bed or is it like i've got nine sick days i can chew up this year and i'm absolutely going to use them i kind of don't want to see these people at work today i'm not in the mood if those are your sick days that's a sign but look around the office how many other people are calling in sick how often is there an empty desk in the office because of a sick day now i'm not talking about this whole work from home i'm talking about people not coming into work that usually come into work because they're sick if that number is high if you can be like yeah pretty much every day there's somebody sick that is a huge red flag that the environment you're working in may be toxic each one of these things that i'm sharing in and of themselves are not necessarily the sign that it's a toxic workplace but it is when they you start to group these situations or these points together and jeepers who's this jeepers but jeepers if you get all of them together bail you need to get out but we'll get to that in a second the next sign that you're in a toxic work environment is you have a narcissistic leader now i find it interesting that the term narcissistic is being thrown around a lot these days but part of me wonders if we just haven't noticed what these people are really like who these people really are and now it's like coming to the forefront of our everyday but if you have a narcissistic leader somebody where you can't you can't give them constructive feedback you can't question anything they say you always do things wrong or you always approach them and they're in a bad mood or they have no time for you that's the sign of a narcissistic leader they think they are the center of the universe or the workplace and if you're working for somebody like that that is the worst person you can work for like i'm not saying every boss is great and i'm not saying every boss is bad but if you work for a narcissistic boss and they really believe they are the pulse of your company of your department that can be a bad sign that can really impact your anxiety your stress levels this is not something to be taken lightly now let's go back to looking around your workplace like don't be freaky and weird and staring at people but take notice on any given day are people generally happy or are they miserable because i can tell you this i worked in an environment where we had great benefits we had great hours like our shifts were fantastic we got paid fairly well for the job we had to do but nobody was happy people were miserable coming into their shift that's because there was a period of about five years it was a absolute show it was a toxic environment that people only stayed because it was convenient it wasn't that bad where you had to leave it wasn't that bad that you would want to go somewhere else because the hours the pay the benefits they were just they were just good enough to keep us but it was by far the most toxic place that i've ever been in in my work career so pay attention who's happy is that just their general demeanor and does the workplace bring that down a notch or who's always miserable and have you ever seen them outside of work and they're just a ray of sunshine take all of this in and decide or try to figure out toxic workplace or just a personality issue while we're looking around the office how many new faces do you see here's what we need to understand that as a people we don't like to change jobs not a lot of us we like to be comfortable we like to know what's expected of us day in and day out and kind of have a flow to our lives but if you're working in a place and the turnover is high what that means to me is it's a toxic environment without question because what's happening is you've gotten comfortable comfortable enough that you're not ready to leave but somebody left and then somebody new came in and they're looking around like the day i'm working here the day i'm putting up with this and they leave so the turnover is high and maybe just you and a couple other people are sticking around which is going to make it more toxic for you because the pressure goes on you because everybody's new nobody really knows what's going on so then that narcissistic boss comes and says well why aren't you helping this person why aren't you doing this this has now become your responsibility can you understand how that might be a little bit stressful it might bring on the anxiety you might lose sleep all of these mites could really weigh heavy on your lifespan now before we get into telling you what you need to start doing if you've decided or determined that you're kind of in a toxic environment the last thing in terms of the signs is what's the gossip like like the rumor mill when it's on fire when there's little clicks and oh i don't talk to those people and these people don't talk to that sales and marketing they don't get along that is toxic you can't tell me that you enjoy going into work where you don't talk to certain departments and you don't talk to certain cliques that's not fun it's not enjoyable you may think that nah screw them but it does weigh heavy on you emotionally whether you know it or not whether you admit it or not so now you're saying okay mike that's great you've really put it in perspective i work in a dump it's a toxic dump now what do i do well here's your quick plan first without any question without any hesitation number one start planning your exit because when you have a plan for how long you're going to be able to deal with this stuff when you have a plan it just makes it a little bit more tolerable because you know you're on your way out you're starting to apply for jobs you're starting to casually reach into your network to see what opportunities might be around maybe you want to go to go back to school maybe you want to do a complete career change maybe you want to start a youtube channel and help others see the bs that happens at work this is your opportunity start making that plan the next thing you want to do is you need to document everything as leaders i've told you to document things because you know if you're dealing with a troubled employee or you're having a situation you just want to have everything all your ducks in a row this is the same thing but you're working for a narcissistic boss you're working with people that don't show up so you need to make sure that you document all the conversations has your narcissistic boss requested something that you think is a little bit off well you have to do it you don't be an insubordinate team member but at the same time you know what's wrong so document the date that it was asked and why you you know what your thought process was and that you didn't want to do it just have everything ready in case in case of what i don't know but you better be ready especially if there's people that know that you've had you have a strategy for getting out of there because as people we also we we claim we want everybody to succeed but we don't want you to leave before i do because then what does that say about me next and this is very important is that you need to have a plan for after work how are you going to de-stress go to the gym go for a walk over drinks with friends not too many drinks because that's a different sign of anxiety and stress but go out and make plans so that you are not consumed by this toxic world this toxic environment that you're currently in have a way of at the end of each day something to look forward to something to go to and just relax just be yourself just take the weight off of your shoulders and while doing that what you can do now right now to help your situation is i want you to watch this video which goes more in depth on how to deal with a toxic work environment because we've acknowledged it now you got to deal with it okay get your kfc i'll see you there ciao

Channel: Leadership with Mike

Views: 134,306

Keywords: leadership with mike

Id: TtR1Kh9pMlo

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Tue May 31 2022