Feedback Skills Will Help You Avoid A Toxic Work Environment

Feedback. This simple word, and the action it represents, has the power to create an open, positive and healthy workplace. When absent, it has the power to promote a toxic work environment.

Feedback is an integral part of organizational life. Evaluations, performance reviews, contract renewals, renegotiations, and day-to-day team conversations that move projects along all require the ability to give and receive feedback.

So how does this skill, or specifically the lack of it, lead to toxic work environments?

First, let’s look at workplaces where feedback is lacking. What happens when you aren’t given performance reviews – especially if wages or promotions are tied to these reviews? What happens when there is no direction for a project, yet you later find out through the grapevine that your superiors were unhappy with your work? What happens when you have a team member that constantly makes mistakes or doesn’t deliver work on time? How is everyone impacted if management will not directly address these important needs?

These are just a few of the ways that the lack of feedback can lead to feelings of betrayal that fuel toxic work environments. As you experience these things over and over, you begin to feel like your work doesn’t matter, that management doesn’t care about you or your success, or that you are being set up to fail. These feelings lead to disengagement.

What’s worse than no (or poor) feedback? Negative behaviors leaders, managers and team members engage in that further the growth of toxicity, such as:

calling out others when a mistake is made
shifting the blame from one team member to another
playing favorites
yelling, berating, or overtly abusing others
providing only negative input to an action or process

Feedback, when delivered thoughtfully, is a powerful vehicle for building trust, and ultimately, your professional effectiveness.

Feedback Can Fuel or Smother a Toxic Work Environment

It is not hard to understand how important feedback can be to preventing or eliminating a toxic work environment. But how do you give good feedback? How do you tell people their behaviors are negatively affecting performance or your working relationship?

How do you receive feedback without taking it personally, without getting defensive, or without getting your feelings hurt?

The key to giving feedback is to remember that it’s not what you say, but how you say it – and the intention with which you offer your insights.

Good Intentions are Important to the Feedback Process

If your intent is to put a person down, to prove him or her wrong so as to make yourself right, you are getting it wrong! These personal attacks create defensiveness, an unwillingness to listen, and future apprehension about feedback. In essence, you’re promoting a toxic work environment.

If your intent is to make your colleague aware of how he or she is perceived and to strengthen the relationship, you’re on the right track. By focusing on specific behaviors and being true to your positive intention to help, rather than to judge or criticize, you are making your feedback productive. When you extend compassion while giving feedback, you support others to see opportunities to improve something – a behavior, a skill, an approach, a relationship. It is easier for the other person to receive the feedback when they can participate in understanding that their approach to a problem can be changed to achieve a different outcome.

In this way you’re demonstrating that you care for the other person and that you’re willing to invest in your mutual effectiveness. You build a deeper sense of understanding for how to move forward, together, in the most productive manner.

To give feedback effectively, you need to be willing to receive it in return.

When others give you feedback, listen closely for their intentions. Being defensive and focusing on your response prevents you from hearing, and learning. Instead, focus on what is being said, make an effort to be open and show genuine interest in what you hear.

When you practice this behavior people will experience your receptiveness and will feel safe in sharing their perceptions. When people feel that their opinions are both being heard and matter, they are more willing to engage. This dynamic helps avoid the apathy that accompanies toxic work environments.

Having the courage to engage in constructive feedback conversations is an ongoing discipline that demonstrates commitment to fostering strong, trusting relationships that eliminate toxic work environments while building your Trust of Communication and overall professional effectiveness.

Toxic Work Environment: The number one stopper for effective teaming

Gossip is the number one killer of Trust of Communication in teams.

Ninety percent of behaviors that break trust and lead to toxic work environments are small, subtle, and unintentional. Most often, we don’t mean to break each other’s trust, but we all do. One of the most common ways this happens in the workplace is through gossip.

Working with teams worldwide, team trust assessment results have found that they all share a propensity to gossip. This is a global phenomena.

When gossip is active team members report that it hurts workplace communication, their ability to work well as a team, to collaborate and to trust in one another.

There are a variety of reasons why people struggle with gossip in the workplace:

Lack of information

Hurt feelings
Retaliation
Unsolicited feedback
Trying to fit in
They don’t feel safe to talk openly
Envious of others
Dismissive behavior

As the behaviors continue, mounting unaddressed issues get funneled into the grapevine and are turned into major conflicts later, resulting in things such as damaged reputations, loss of opportunities, the spread of misinformation, and a general distrust among team members. Morale tanks and people stop working with and engaging other members of the team. This leads to workplace communication being hindered and to an overall toxic work environment.

Gossip Seems ‘Safe’ Yet

Creates A Toxic Work Environment

Most people will say they rarely gossip. Yet, in our experience, when we start discussing what gossip is and how it contributes to a toxic work environment, people often realize just how often they participate.

Part of the problem is that gossiping seems to be a “safer” behavior. It allows you to surface an issue or frustration without the fears of confrontation. In fact, gossiping is a part of the pattern that contributed to toxic work environments. When people gossip, it contributes to a feeling of being connected to those with whom they share information. This is especially true when someone is struggling, and feels the need for affiliation or validation.

Unfortunately, this can have the opposite impact by leading to distrust, fear, and breakdowns in individual relationships as well as in overall workplace communication. Simple venting readily can quickly become trust-breaking gossip and it creates feelings of betrayal and distrust throughout a team. Once those feelings are present they don’t go away until they are addressed and some rebuilding of trust is supported to take place. When trust rebuilding doesn’t happen a permanent toxic work environment is likely to take over.

When you talk about your concerns with others rather than with the person with whom you have an issue, talk behind people’s backs, or relay information you’ve heard about the company without verifying it with a boss, you are fueling the rumor mill and contributing to a toxic work environment where agitation and speculation steal focus from where it belongs – on relationships and on the work itself.

Exploring Gossip in Toxic Work Environments

In order to explore the impacts of gossip on workplace communication and its contribution to toxic work environments (even when unintentional), give some thought to the following questions:

What is the impact of gossip on the person being gossiped about?

When people think about the effect gossip has on an individual, they often think about how gossip:

Taints or ruins a reputation
Hurts feelings
Causes individuals to shut down or isolate from others
Decreases willingness to collaborate and provide input
Adds to anxiety, skepticism, paranoia, suspicion
Leads to low engagement, energy and productivity
Has you looking over your shoulder

What is the impact of the gossip on others – the team, organization, and workplace culture?

When teams begin to reflect on how the team unit and the organization are impacted by gossip, they often identify that this behavior:

Hinders workplace communication between teams and departments
Creates anxiety and mistrust
Causes distraction
Reduces productivity
Creates an insider-outsider dynamic
Stagnates creativity
Brings down morale
Creates divisiveness
Fosters disengagement

What is the impact of gossip on the Gossiper?

As with all things, we must also look at the person who is gossiping. We often hear that the “gossiper” is:

Not being true to self
Demonstrating a lack of integrity
Breaking others’ trust and altering their reputation in the minds of others
Creating disruption and distraction

When you engage in gossip, you not only lose the trust of the individual you’re talking about, but your behavior is noted by others.

Remember, trust is reciprocal. You have to give it to get it. By not engaging in gossip and, instead, directly engaging those with whom you have issues, you will help improve workplace communication, build team morale, and increase personal relationships. This all leads to increased business performance.

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3 Benefits of Allowing Other People to Make Decisions

Trust of Capability

Handing over the reins.

Letting people work autonomously.

Encouraging others to voice their opinions, call the shots, and make the decisions. These are all easier said than done, right? Especially when the margins are slim and the competition so fierce.

And now, with the uncertainty that has taken the world hostage the stakes are even higher. But, trusting in the capability of your team, your staff, and those your work with is the only way to successfully navigate the uncertainty.

If you’re one of the many leaders that struggles to let others run with your vision, and have the final say, you are not alone.

We say that there is another way, a better way, and that is through Trust Building – and more specifically, through building Trust of Capability.

As you build Trust of Capability you will experience three significant benefits:

1. People stop waiting on you to tell them what to do.

People who hold on to every detail become the bottleneck. They become the leaders that hold up everything. Issues big and small accumulate instead of being dealt with. See, small decisions can be made by your direct reports. Small issues could be addressed and managed by other people on your team. That would leave you open for handling the tougher problems.

But when you have to touch everything, decide everything, everything piles up on your desk – blurring the line between what’s urgent and what’s not.

Meanwhile, people wait. Not just on the issues they put in front of you, but on the other decisions they can’t make until those issues are resolved.

You have the ability to liberate the workflow and release people from their holding patterns. Extend trust that they’re able to do the jobs they’ve been handpicked to do. Trust in their experience and expertise. You will feel much better for it, progress will speed up, and you will take a large step towards improving your leadership effectiveness.

As you improve this behavior, you will notice that your work load will get lighter. Your staff, reports, and coworkers won’t bother you with as many problems, and you will be able to tackle the issues that are fit your unique skill set.

2. People will start taking appropriate risks.

No team, in any industry, in any part of the world, can survive through a cookie cutter approach to anything.

Everything – every idea, process, and product – must continuously evolve as a customized solution to a current, nuanced need for your specific customer base, audience, or market.

Customization can’t happen without innovation.

Innovation can’t happen without appropriate risk taking.

And risk taking can’t happen if people don’t feel trusted to direct their own work.

Effective leadership means that you help people feel safe to stick out their necks. Let them known they’re trusted to take the ball and run with it.

There will be mistakes. They should be addressed, discussed, and then a new approach taken. But as the leader, you must not take the initiative away from the person that made the mistake. Support them to complete the job, show them you trust their instincts, experience, and talents.

Pretty soon, you will have a team that is willing to take appropriate risks to the benefit of your initiatives and goals. And, they will do so without having to get your approval every step of the way. This is how successful teams run, and it is how they excel.

3. People will take greater responsibility for addressing the impacts of their mistakes.

Mistakes will happen…

Let me say that again – They Will Happen…

But, when people feel trusted to move their own work forward, a beautiful thing occurs. Those same people feel responsible for cleaning up their own mistakes.

Think about it.

Which would kick you in to crisis management mode faster: A messy situation someone else created, or a messy situation you created?

Most people feel more driven to address and remedy mistakes that are 100% theirs. They feel pride in their success and their crisis management. No one wants to fail, and so when they can own a project they will turn ‘failures’ into success whenever possible.

Effective leadership goes hand in hand with employee engagement. By allowing others to make decisions in their work, exercise their expertise, and by allowing them autonomy to do the job that they were hired to do, your team’s engagement levels will vastly increase. You’ll see productivity and innovation grow. And the trust between you and the people you work with will grow, creating a stronger unit that makes this progress the norm, not the exception.

The Power Of Trust Building® in Uncertain Times

During these challenging times, people are experiencing uncertainty and ambiguity as it pertains to their work and working relationships. It is at times like this where Trust becomes essential. The 7 tips shared in this video will support you in creating effective, productive relationships.

3 Top Trust Breaking Behaviors in the Workplace

Signs and Symptoms That Trust is Being Eroded Within Your Team

What this Article Covers:

3 Symptoms of Trust Erosion
Trust Breaking Behavior #1: Gossip at Work
Trust Breaking Behavior #2: Breaking Confidentiality
Trust Breaking Behavior #3: Getting Even
Building Trust in the Workplace

The simplest things can turn a productive team into one where gossip, backbiting and other trust breaking behavior overshadow the work.

It is because the level of trust within a team and between individuals is eroded. It worsens with each small betrayal and each negative encounter. Without good communication, that damage is never fixed, leaving the core foundation of the relationships crumbling.

It is ultimately up to leaders to identify that there is a problem and begin building trust in the workplace.

There is good news in all of this: there are very obvious symptoms of trust erosion. Once you spot the three early signs of trust erosion, you can take action right away to stop the damage—an even reverse it.

1. Gossip At Work

Everyone wants to be on a team where they feel free to share ideas, where they can communicate openly and honestly about issues and challenges. Building trust in the workplace creates an environment where people want to work.

Yet every day, trust is tested in team relationships, especially in the form of gossip at work.

Gossip is the number-one trust breaking behavior within teams. Rather than going directly to the individual with an issue or concern, members talk to everyone else. The grapevine begins to flourish.

As the time goes on, if the gossip is unchecked, it becomes more prevalent, happens more often, becomes more disruptive. Soon people began to hear about things a co-worker said behind their backs. They in turn gossip. Negative feelings grow. Distrust grows. Once the feeling of distrust takes hold, team members no longer work well with each other—they watch what they say, don’t voice ideas and exhibit other coping behaviors. Stress rises, as do other trust breaking behaviors.

When you notice team members talking about one another behind each other’s back, this is an immediate sign that there has been damage to the foundational level of trust within your team. It must be addressed to begin building trust in the workplace.

2. Breaking Confidentiality

Similar to gossip at work, breaking confidentiality has to do with how people in your team are communicating—it also says something important about trust of character.

Sometimes a personal issue may interfere with a person’s ability to meet deadlines, or how they are functioning at work. Being able to share issues with leadership or team members so they understand the outside pressure or an extraordinary circumstance is a factor in maintaining trust and keep projects on track.

But people are reluctant to discuss personal matters in a climate where confidences are broken and rumor mills are fed.

This is also true of professional confidentiality. From company trade secrets, to intellectual property, to individuals’ ideas for market growth with a new product or system. When these things are publicly shared, others become suspicious about whether their information is safe.

Building trust in the workplace means that people feel their personal and professional information is safe. Disclosing information members have been trusted to keep private—whether it is personal or professional—violates trust. Breaches of confidentiality encourages misunderstandings.

When a leader hears that confidentiality is being broken it should be immediately addressed as a trust breaking behavior that threatens to weaken teams.

3. Getting Even

Gossip at work and breaking confidentiality lead to defensiveness and a “get even” attitude among team members. For example: “they said something about me, so I am going to share personal information about them.” Or: “she didn’t get me the information I needed in time, so I’m not going to worry about this deadline I committed to meeting for her.”

This tit-for-tat behavior will continue to escalate if not addressed: further decreasing the effectiveness of the team, eroding trust, creating deep feelings of betrayal and causing stress in the lives of all team members involved.

This trust breaking behavior is easy to spot because it to will get shared through the grapevine. People will begin to gossip about perceived wrongs, or use one person’s past behavior as an excuse for their current bad behavior.

When a leader hears or sees this “getting even” mindset, it must be addressed immediately to stop the erosion of trust within the team. Once this behavior is turned around, people feel less worried about making small mistakes and are able to begin building trust in the workplace.

Building Trust in the Workplace

Trust is fragile and our everyday behaviors—even those that are unconscious—can break it.

As a leader, you can turn your team around by modeling behavior that begins building trust in the workplace. People unconsciously follow behavior modeled by leaders, bosses and even administration. If leaders allow a behavior to persist, they are unconsciously saying to their team that this behavior is acceptable.

Trust begins with you!

The first step in correcting trust breaking behavior is to consider how your behavior has contributed to the presence or absence of trust in your team dynamics. From there, model the behavior you wish to see, address the issue by discussing how things should be handled you’re your team and follow through. When you see one of these behaviors, address it with the offending team member. Make it clear to your staff these behaviors are not tolerated and provide them with healthy ways to communicate to avoid eroding trust.

By addressing common trust breaking behaviors and creating a culture that encourages building trust in the workplace, you will transform your team into one that can transcend any challenge.

Build and Maintain Trust in Workplace Culture through Mutually Serving Intentions

Assessing what you are giving to the situation as well as what you are receiving, about what you hope to gain and achieve through this mutually serving relationship, can help you build your team and work toward common goals making you, and the team as a whole, more productive.

Often a breakdown in trust occurs when team members perceive other members’ intentions as being selfish, that others are focused on what “is in it for them.” There becomes a reluctance to trust those team members, to ask each other for help, or to reach out and offer help.

In turn, people become defensive as they feel that others aren’t willing to help. People stop offering help and more breakdowns occur. Before you know it, there is no trust remaining in the team and there is a pervasive feeling that each person must be in protective mode, must “own” everything because others can’t be trusted to complete tasks or do what is needed.

But if each team member is essentially working alone, then what is the point of the team? How are each person’s skills being leveraged to increase efficiency and productivity? The answer is, they aren’t.

Mutually Serving Intentions: Supporting others and operating with a sense of shared purpose to create products, finish projects, serving customers builds Trust of Character and increases productivity.

Remember, building trust is reciprocal; you have to give trust in order to receive it.

From Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace

By Drs. Dennis and Michelle Reina

Build trust rather than throwing shade

Don’t be the person who shades other people out.