Organizational toxicity is a combination of dysfunctional behaviours among leaders that causes them to conduct unhealthy organizational practices. Organizational toxicity is driven by disempowering practices, individuals with a mentality of personal entitlement, and resistance to change. Additionally, the increasing challenge of financing care is a significant cause of organizational toxicity in a healthcare system. Influential organizational leaders are tasked with identifying such behaviours and devising strategies that can minimize their effects. In addition, leaders must identify this toxicity early because as it continues, it can slowly but surely lead to a loss of creativity and, ultimately, lower productivity. Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2017) present ten sources of organizational toxicity that can enable readers to understand the dynamics of the issue and thus formulate strategies to curb it. This essay will review the ten sources and discuss how leaders can handle them to make an organization healthy.
The first toxin found in most organizations is vertical authority structure. An organization’s design, authority, and decision-making can significantly contribute to organizational toxicity. For instance, a vertical organizational structure can reinforce negative behaviours since such structures cause leaders to believe that they are fighting an enemy out there that needs to be controlled. However, depending on an organization’s strategy, size and age, leaders can incorporate healthy behaviours in the organization, such as reducing excessive control over individuals. Nevertheless, leaders can change to other authority structures, such as the horizontal structure that allows employees to be part of decision-making processes. Ultimately, organizations can incorporate both structures since it would benefit their business goals. The second source is inequitable reward and recognition practices. Inequitable pay is a toxin in many organizations, and compensation practices can be termed toxic when unfair and inconsistent reward strategies. To make the organization healthy, leaders can frequently conduct performance reviews to establish a distinction that will ensure fair reward practices for excellently performing employees. Additionally, leaders can standardize their employees’ salaries to ensure equal pay among all employees.
The third source of organizational toxicity is the abuse of power which often occurs at the middle-level management level. According to Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2017), expert nurses are often selected to lead, whether they have leadership experience. As a result, they end up with title and power in their hands, which they misuse and run into trouble sooner than later. This toxicity primarily occurs when hiring or appointing inexperienced leaders because they are good at their jobs. Chen (2018) outlines that, specifically in medical leadership, organizations must use practical appointment standards that ensure the health institution attracts competent leaders. The fourth source of organizational toxicity is the failure to manage unmotivated employees. It can be overwhelming and draining for leaders to work with unmotivated employees. The big challenge is not to identify the undermotivated employees but to continue working with them despite their minimal work effort. Nevertheless, leaders can take corrective action towards individuals who are not working to their full potential to make an organization healthy. Leow and Leow (2022) suggest that among the most effective strategies is to talk to unmotivated employees to understand the issue from their perspective so that a leader can address their concerns and improve their motivation. This ” talk ” aims to identify the triggers that contribute to an employee’s lack of motivation and connection from work.
The fifth toxin is leaders who are frequently inconsistent and dishonest in word and action. It isn’t delightful when employees are willing to respect and follow, but their leaders do not act per their values and beliefs. Leaders can significantly contribute to unhealthy organizations by passing ambiguous or contradictory messages to their juniors, causing confusion and misunderstandings among employees. Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2017) outline that leaders often lie when explaining decisions to downsize employees. Nevertheless, leaders can enhance more honest leadership by focusing on the positive outcome of their communication in the workplace. This will effectively create honesty among team members and cultivate a culture of openness in the organization. The sixth source of organizational toxicity is a lack of respect for the workforce. According to Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2017), leaders of healthcare organizations are known for viewing staff members as the cost of conducting business. Most leaders are known to objectify their employees, failing to consider them well enough. This results in an unhappy, powerless, and dependent workforce, resulting in an unhealthy organization in the long run. Leaders should respect their employees to increase their motivation, maintain individual discipline and cultivate a healthy organizational culture (Elkhwesky et al., 2019). Therefore, leaders can demonstrate that they value employees and prioritize their growth to gain employees’ respect.
The seventh toxin is tolerance of antisocial behaviours in the workplace. These behaviours include bullying, dishonesty, and sexual harassment. The social context of an organization significantly determines how employees think and feel about specific aspects of their jobs. Managers should take a more flexible approach towards antisocial behaviours and take it upon themselves to discourage antisocial behaviours within the workplace while guiding naturally antisocial individuals. The eighth toxin is toxic mentoring. While mentoring is supposed to guide others, some leaders believe that mentoring is an ill-conceived practice that obstructs the necessary adaptations to changes in the work environment. According to Porter-O’Grady and Malloch, toxic mentoring can come about when aspiring leaders seek to please experienced leaders who are idealized, meaning they do not require to be mentored. The experienced leader can talk the aspiring leader through the advantages and impact of healthy mentoring. On the other hand, mentees should be sure they do not end up in a bad mentoring situation.
The ninth source of organizational toxicity is an imbalance between work and personal life. With the advent of the internet, the balance between work and personal life has collapsed for many since technology has opened new opportunities and experiences. Although technology has tremendous positive impacts, overindulging is causing people to lack time for their personal life which is dangerous in reporting high fatigue levels. Organizations that have computerized working systems can regulate the amount of time an employee can spend on their electronic devices to strike a balance between work and personal life. The final toxin is reactive advocacy gone awry. According to Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2017), advocacy leadership in health care is proactive, and its purpose is to have barriers in the workplace. On the other hand, reactive advocacy consists of ambiguous values and leaders cannot take action to alleviate unhealthy situations. According to Pryor (2020), advocacy leadership is essential in helping leaders compel individuals towards action by bringing them together. Hence, to have a healthy organization, leaders should strive to achieve advocacy by demonstrating its impact through their leadership. In summary, these ten sources of organizational toxicity help leaders discover the line of weaknesses in their leadership, so they may know where to improve.
Reference
Chen, T. Y. (2018). Medical leadership: An important and required competency for medical students. Tzu-chi medical journal, 30(2), 66.
Elkhwesky, Z., Salem, I. E., & Barakat, M. (2019). Diversity management in hotels: The moderating role of empowerment and capability development. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights.
Leow, K., & Leow, S. (2022). The Role of Social Support in Dealing With the Different Types of Stressors: Social Support in the Workplace. In Handbook of Research on the Complexities and Strategies of Occupational Stress (pp. 92-107). IGI Global.
Pryor, J. T. (2020). QUEER ADVOCACY LEADERSHIP: A Queer Leadership Model for Higher Education. Journal of Leadership Education, 19(1).
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