{"id":3900,"date":"2025-04-14T20:41:50","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T20:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3900"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:24:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:24:42","slug":"taming-toxic-workplaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/taming-toxic-workplaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Taming Toxic Workplaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

If you work for a bad boss at a dysfunctional or toxic organization, you can either find a new job or learn to cope with stressful conditions. But if you can get middle managers on your side, then you might even be able to start changing the toxic culture.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Bess Rouse<\/a> of Boston College, who coauthored an Academy of Management Journal<\/em> article<\/a> with William Kahn<\/a> of Boston University on this topic, said that toxicity appears in organizations as intolerance, bullying, narcissism, and other forms of destructiveness that demoralize employees and undermine organizational success. Senior leaders often perpetrate toxicity or fail to stem destructive behaviors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do the people working underneath these intolerant, narcissistic, or destructive leaders respond in these toxic situations?\u201d Rouse said. \u201cIt isn\u2019t uncommon for me to talk to somebody who feels like they have one of these toxic leaders that they\u2019re working under, but they don\u2019t always have an idea of how to handle it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne option is to just leave, but we don\u2019t always have that option to just leave, so then we think about, \u2018How do we want to be? What kind of middle manager, if we\u2019re in that position, do we want to be?\u201d she said. \u201cDo we want to be somebody who protects ourselves and has that toxicity cascade down the organization, or do we want to be somebody who buffers our employees and makes them feel protected?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are different ways of thinking about coping with a toxic workplace; we talk about this as workarounds for how you think about responding to those toxic leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toxic organizations drain workers\u2019 personal agency, undermining their capacity to act independently and make choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeaders\u2019 toxic behaviors such as intolerance, bullying, narcissism, and destructiveness are all red flags, and we can be good leaders without having those behaviors,\u201d Rouse said. \u201cWhat we saw in that study was that these weren\u2019t bad people\u2014they were driven by anxiety about a lot of external challenges that were happening in the organization, and they just managed that anxiety by belittling other people and diminishing them.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it wasn\u2019t the most effective way, but that was their way of dealing with that pressure, and then we also found that that stayed in place because the senior team colluded around that, essentially, and no one stepped up and said, \u2018We can\u2019t keep behaving this way,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cIt was actually the middle managers, those people who were better at shifting from absorption to differentiating among team members, which ended up challenging that structure in that type of toxic organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially when that that top leadership team has become very insular and supporting of one another in a way that there are no new voices coming into that senior team, then the middle managers are left to have to do that that work of changing the toxic organizational culture.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher If you work for a bad boss at a dysfunctional or toxic organization, you can either find a new job or learn to cope with stressful conditions. But if you can get middle managers on your side, then you might even be able to start changing the toxic culture. Academy of Management […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,19,44,79],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation","category-leadership","category-motivation","category-teams"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTaming Toxic Workplaces - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/taming-toxic-workplaces\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/taming-toxic-workplaces\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/taming-toxic-workplaces\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Taming Toxic Workplaces\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-14T20:41:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-09T15:24:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/taming-toxic-workplaces\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":495,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/taming-toxic-workplaces\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/angry.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"INNOVATION\",\"LEADERSHIP\",\"MOTIVATION\",\"TEAMS\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/taming-toxic-workplaces\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/taming-toxic-workplaces\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/taming-toxic-workplaces\\\/\",\"name\":\"Taming Toxic Workplaces - 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You can reach him at dbutcher@aom.org or via LinkedIn.","sameAs":["https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/danielbutcher\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"daniel-butcher","display_name":"Daniel Butcher","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp","url2x":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry.webp",1080,720,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry.webp",1080,720,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry.webp",1080,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry-1024x683.webp",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry.webp",1080,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry.webp",1080,720,false],"owl_elementor_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry-600x400.webp",600,400,true],"owl_elementor_team":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry-350x450.webp",350,450,true],"owl_elementor_testimonial":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/angry-100x100.webp",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Daniel Butcher","author_link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"},"rttpg_comment":1,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/innovation\/\" rel=\"category tag\">INNOVATION<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/leadership\/\" rel=\"category tag\">LEADERSHIP<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/motivation\/\" rel=\"category tag\">MOTIVATION<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/teams\/\" rel=\"category tag\">TEAMS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"By Daniel Butcher If you work for a bad boss at a dysfunctional or toxic organization, you can either find a new job or learn to cope with stressful conditions. But if you can get middle managers on your side, then you might even be able to start changing the toxic culture. Academy of Management…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3900"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=3900"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}