Dear Senior Leadership: Quit Enabling Toxic Bosses!

A toxic boss is a manager who demoralizes and damages the people underneath them. Their repeated, disruptive behavior drives employees to become disengaged, diminishes their sense of belonging, and takes away their autonomy and sense of purpose—all of which are vital for thriving at work. 

Gallup’s 2022 State of the Global Workplace report found that only 33% of employees in the U.S. and Canada feel engaged in their work, a feeling that good bosses foster. Many employees reported experiencing negative emotions during the workday, including worry (41%), stress (50%), sadness (22%), and anger (18%)—a recipe for burnout.

The report also identified five sources that lead to burnout: unfair treatment at work, an unmanageable workload, unclear communication from managers, lack of manager support, and unreasonable time pressure. And “those five causes have one thing in common: your boss,” the report summarizes. “Get a bad one and you are almost guaranteed to hate your job.”

One of many descriptions of the effect that toxic bosses have on subordinates is by Roy Lubit in his article The Tyranny of Toxic Managers: An Emotional Intelligence Approach to Dealing with Difficult Personalities.

In his article, Lubit asserts that toxic managers ‘can complicate your work, drain your energy, compromise your sanity, derail your projects and destroy your career.’ And he adds: ‘Toxic managers divert people’s energy from the real work of the organization, destroy morale, impair retention, and interfere with cooperation and information sharing.’

There are several reasons why it seems that organizations tolerate toxic bosses. Here are some of the few excuses for keeping toxic bosses in place.

Friends in High Places - Some managers are protected by their hierarchy. They have ‘friends in high places’, so can do nothing wrong. This is especially useful for toxic managers, as it means they can keep their positions and continue with their normal toxic behavior, without risk or blame. Those protected by their bosses are rarely fired. Many of these bosses are deaf to negative information about the managers they protect, even from peers or Human Resources. There needs to be extreme toxicity, and the start of a consensus in management around the protecting boss before they listen to the criticism. But even then, it may take a long time before they act.

Senior Leaders Claim to Not Know - Sometimes management claims they don’t know they have toxic managers in their organization, or even in their team. Toxic bosses know that they are toxic; therefore, have developed an ability to hide their toxicity from the hierarchy above them. This can be especially problematic because colleagues at your boss’ level or above might not see how they’re treating their subordinates or get an unbiased view of what’s happening day-to-day. And for the subordinates, having a boss who’s chummy with higher-ups can feel isolating and make it more intimidating to raise concerns about their toxic behavior.

Managing Upwards - Another way toxic managers can stay in the organization is to become experts at managing their bosses: managing upwards. They give their boss what they want when they want it, and in the manner they want it. These managers can use this expertise and the resulting special relationship with their boss to hide their toxicity.

Toxic Company Culture – When organizational culture is toxic, there is only one place to look: The CEO. Company culture is a top-down function, and the culture of the organization follows the CEO. This means that the CEO is a toxic boss themselves, they blame everyone and everything for the downfall of the organization, or even worse, they are simply not paying attention. In many cases, this type of organizational behavior becomes a breeding ground for toxic bosses at all levels. 

They are Not Toxic Enough - And finally, there is the excuse that they are not toxic enough to take action. Their performance results are average or a little below, so there is no reason to intervene. They are not good enough to promote or bad enough to fire, so management leaves them in place. Perhaps despite what their subordinates are reporting.

The bottom line is that if senior management doesn’t know they have toxic bosses in their organization, shame on them! Senior leadership should know, it is their job to know, and furthermore, it is their job to rid the organization of toxic bosses. Every organization should have a process in place to detect managers who are a virus to the organization and the employees.

Based on the previously mentioned report done in 2004, nothing has changed, and whatever anyone recommends, nothing will for the reasons given. That is unless the organization takes a serious look at itself and quits enabling these toxic bosses. Until this happens, senior leadership and HR in these organizations remain nothing more than a bunch of flying monkeys circling the castle in support of these narcissistic, toxic bosses. 

Want to know more, reach out to me and let's talk about solutions for changing the course of your organization. 

Rich Baron is a Master Certified Intelligent Leadership Executive Coach at John Mattone Global, with over 25 years of experience in operational and executive leadership positions.