Revisiting the toxic work environment

I have written before about a toxic work environment, I am interested from an organisational standpoint about how this is able to occur in a modern workplace?

I question why this occurs, why are managers installed in a business to manage operations? If their sole role is to manage, why are they unable to fulfill their role and manage people to a competent level? Management is really work done through others.

This is a leadership failure, there is no other explanation for it yet it is easy enough to rectify. This takes communication skills, the manager has to pull themselves out of office and away from spreadsheets.

You need to be out and about without micromanaging, I believe in delegation and providing support allowing people to expand their roles and knowledge.

You don't show favouritism, people are promoted based on strict and measurable criteria. It is inequity that generally causes a toxic work environment, it creates tension as the high performers generally become dissatisfied whilst the underachievers are allowed to run riot, by this time, the workplace has descended into chaos.

From what I have encountered, most managers possess poor leadership skills. Well, this was based on my thirteen years of state government experiences anyway. My return to private enterprise surprised me on how far leadership has advanced in the private sector.

I was employed in a leadership role, my manager took seven years to complete his MBA and he majored in leadership. From my experiences with such a proactive manager, he pretty much espouses the leadership culture he wishes to embed in our department.

Private enterprise really encourages university education to provide solutions to problems. The public sector less so, they prefer to maintain the old boy’s club and the old way of doing things. Sure, they engage in plenty of poorly planned and executed change management programs but I can’t really call them strategies.

Posters of eagles soaring over mountain ranges doesn’t equate to leadership, it equates to a lack of leadership ability in my eyes. I have yet to see a great private sector leader hanging such useless posters on their walls, they actively live the leadership culture they espouse.