Episode 22: How to navigate toxic environments

“People don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.”

I lived this out myself. I’ve had coworkers actively talking down about me to other teammates behind my back. I’ve had people take my work and play it off as their own without giving me any credit. I’ve had managers ‘advocate’ for me until I came to them with a real problem, and then they dangled a promotion if I just ‘dealt with it.’

Looking back, these were all such a waste of time. I wasted so many mental cycles trying to figure out whether the situation would eventually resolve or if I should find a new role.

If you spend more time worrying about coworkers’ opinions than you do the actual work/customers, that’s a good sign you’re in a toxic environment.

The alternative was always to play politics. I used to think politics was a dirty word—it made me feel icky. The easiest way to make my quit a role is if we spend too much time managing peoples’ egos instead of focusing on the work.

However, I learned you can take the good and leave the bad. Political people are still highly intelligent, so you can learn a few things from them. Some examples below:

The political operator:

This person will blow out your candle to make themselves shine brighter. They take every opportunity to highlight the faults of others, especially if it makes them look better.

Political operators may not have the work output but are excellent relationship builders. The lesson here is in how they built those relationships.

Things to learn:

1. Levels: Who do they have relationships with?

2. Frequency: How often do they connect with executives?

3. Topics: What do they talk about?

The way they build those relationships is very sound and can be helpful. The difference is that when you go to lunch with an executive, you can highlight the work of your teammate doing great work.

The TORmentor:

The TORmentor is someone with a higher title who could be a great advocate for you but is actively working against you. My skip-level manager was a TORmentor with a VP title in a previous role. I constantly heard from his other direct reports that he talked negatively about me. It had nothing to do with my work, so I struggled to deal with it.

Things to try:

One helpful question is: What is this person’s power in the organization? Can you get by without them? In my situation, I learned that their peers did not put much stock in their opinions, so I bet I could get by without them despite their negativity toward me. It paid off because I worked to get other executives to advocate for me, and they largely dismissed my VP’s opinion about me.

Note: You have to be careful with your skip-level managers because they play a key role in your promotions. If you don’t invest in turning your skip-level on your side, you need multiple of their directs to be strong advocates for you.

The know-it-all

Know-it-alls have excellent delivery skills and are expert communicators, so people often believe them even if they don’t know what they are talking about. One good learning from know-it-alls is their style of communication. What can you improve in your own delivery based on what they do?

Things to try:

If you find a know-it-all actively working against you or your idea, focus on being data-driven and knowing your numbers since that’s not about confidence but rather the reality of the numbers. You can disarm them with data.

If you have other personalities that you have come across in toxic environments, let me know. As always, feedback is a gift and I welcome any/all feedback on this episode - good or bad. See ya next week 👋.

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✨ Special thank you to Gigi Marquez who suggested I start this newsletter 🙏7Iq