Toxicity and its Impact for Leaders and Organizations

Toxicity is an all too popular topic for people and not often understood in terms of its long term impact on organizations and society. Profit margins can decline and dissention sowed by those who hold within themselves the propensity for the dark triad arts. Recognizing toxicity is helpful and having mechanisms for leaders and organizations to deal with it is important. Many times awareness of how toxic personalities impact the environment is not well known until long after its effects and the offender moves on. A greater focus on what is central to the organizatoin and the values it holds can counter that.

Experience and research help show that toxic personalities have a confounding effect on the climate of a workplace. Good people leave, ideas are lost, infighting grows, unethical behaviors rise, short term decision making abounds, etc. Generally, people are less productive when such individuals are around and the entire organization, entity, and/or institution suffers. Short term gains are good as long as we focus on the trees.

I have learned over the years that such toxic people continue on until they tangle with someone more dominant or who has more influence. Policies are typically not enforced until the problem has become so big it can't be ignored. That happens because organizations reward short term results over long-term growth and don't have enough emphasis on values. Really good organizations manage for the long term and they stick with certain characteristics and vlaues that come to define them. Employees help create that definition so they select wisely.

You may want to read Qualitative Research on Toxic Personalities

A few things to think about in terms of how personality both positive and toxic influence performance:

-Personality influences culture and communication lines.

-Personality influences decisions, rewards, and outcomes. 

-Personality influences idea generation and the environment where people feel empowered to bring forward new ideas to improve innovation. 

-Personality impacts workplace culture and skill retention. 

-Personality opens or narrows the communication lines to be nimble when change is needed. 

If one has a positive helpful personality they are going to have influence and if someone has a toxic negaitve personality they are going to also have influence. While toxicity is hard to manage organizations can focus on certain values, ethics, civility, etc. to enhance their environment and remove people who are obsticles to long term growth. As current and future leaders and peope in positions of authority the environment you create, the type of people you hire, and even the outputs of such activities are a reflection of your personal work. It is helpful to have the right people on the team with greater focus to their missions.