Work IS emotional
Whether you believe in ‘work to live’ or ‘live to work’ most of us think about work and about our workplace relationships during our non-work hours.
Gas lighting, micromanagement, unreasonable demands, harmful gossip and rumours, toxic language, harassment… however you choose to identify and label bullying it’s all insidious.
Everyone has different tolerance levels and triggers that may vary depending on the day, the situation and the circumstances, one person’s pain point may not even be noticed by another. Feelings are feelings and we don’t get to judge how another person feels.
Work IS emotional, we invest in our jobs, our workplaces, and our colleagues. For some people their job title is their identity. True, there are some people who can walk out the door of their workplace and not think of it again until they walk back in but that’s not the story for most. Whether you believe in ‘work to live’ or ‘live to work’ most of us think of work and our workplace relationships during our non-work hours.
This is fine and healthy (within reason) if it is at least mostly positive, a slight grumble amongst some funny or reflective antidotes makes sense, after all, thanks to technology the lines between work and home have blurred over the years.
But what happens when a toxic workplace culture permeates every moment of your day and just driving down the street your office is in causes you to shake.
Or your identity is so tied to your workplace relationships that you think of your colleagues (or just that one person) 24/7.
Or your psychological safety has taken such a beating that your outside of work friends don’t recognise you anymore.
Or you will do just about anything to stay under the doona rather than another day at work.
I have a friend who took a gamble (because sometimes that’s what it feels like) and after years in one organisation moved to another. This friend was a little nervous, but she was confident and excited for the change - the story should have a happy ending.
Unfortunately, she walked into an environment charged with years of historical toxicity, negativity, gossip, and fear of change. My friend is a good person and a formidable advocate for others so recognising the culture she had walked into quickly she set forth to assess and influence cultural change. For months she invested 110% and did everything she could think of to rebuild safety, trust, and respectful communication and boundaries. She didn’t succeed. Instead that horrendous culture chose her as its newest target and with intense, yet subtle and sneaky bullying ate away at her confidence and sense of self. On leaving she told me that she felt embarrassed and disgusted in herself for ‘letting it happen.’ I said I am proud of her, I am proud of her dedication and her fight, and I am proud that she knew when to walk away.
I want to stop writing here and simply place an exclamation mark to finish this page.
BUT I feel that I need to also write that every culture can be turned around and that even the most toxic workplace can be reborn… this is true BUT it takes more than one lone culture warrior.
A culture is made of the people in it, every person needs to engage in the culture they want. As organisations we have to do better to value and build those workers who live their days with care, compassion and respect. We need to revisit our value statements and remind ourselves and our people that they are the culture, that they matter and that they have the power to influence. We all need to be held accountable for the daily choices we make - because all of us, every day, are creating our workplace cultures.