Are You Being Affected by a Toxic Work Environment?
May 2023
Dear Kaibigan,
Are you burnt out, anxious, or depressed because of your job? Are you so unhappy at work that you dread going? Are you feeling undervalued and underappreciated that you’re no longer motivated to perform well? Are you doubting your abilities to do your work?
Self-confidence is valuable in going after what you want in life, including in your career and the type of work you’d like to do. Our occupational wellness typically centers around a paid job. However, I know there are those of us who view their occupation through volunteer work, the work they do in raising a family, keeping a home, caregiving for a loved one, or supporting a partner’s career. Paid or unpaid, you have an opinion about yourself and how you relate to the type of work you’re doing.
I recognize that some choose not to or cannot work at all due to a disability, being presently unemployed, retired, or simply because they don’t want to work. Perhaps your occupational dimension is not a priority at this moment or feels irrelevant. I still ask you to consider how your unique situation fosters greater self-confidence.
Our work environment and culture, co-workers, and responsibilities are just some external factors that can impact our perspective about ourselves and how proud and self-assured we are in our abilities. Like positive thoughts, positive work experiences breed a positive attitude and higher self-confidence. In contrast, toxic and unsupportive work experiences produce self-doubt, anxiety, exhaustion, frustration, and resentment. Sometimes, we are in an unhealthy and toxic work situation without realizing it. Or we actively minimize negative work experiences to cope with the tremendous stress we’re undergoing.
Maybe you’ve considered making a major professional change to escape from the discontent at work. It’s possible you’re toying with ‘quiet quitting’ - refers to doing the minimum requirements of one’s job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary. You may be thinking through ways to get away or just take a break. Perhaps you’re already in the process of an under-the-radar job search before you cut ties with your current employment. Maybe, like so many, you can’t afford to quit altogether. You may be self-employed, caregiving for a loved one, or raising a family so you can’t just leave it all behind, no matter how tempting.
Before you take a plunge down the waterfall of resigning from your job or escaping to pursue a new opportunity, to take a sabbatical during which you don’t work, or as a form of crisis management to leave a bad situation, let’s take a moment to understand as to why your current work situation is causing you intense distress:
Are you doing work that is stimulating and interesting for you?
Are you bored with what you’re doing? Do you find meaning in your role and responsibilities? If you answered yes, then I hope this affirms that you still like your work and scope of work. If you answered no, then ask more questions. What about your responsibilities are boring? What about the job or work feels under-stimulating? What resources at work or in your personal situation are available to you that can address these areas that are causing you to disengage? What ideas do you have to help you feel more connected and willing to do the work? How can you share this with your supervisor, loved one or trusted confidante?
How are you being supported to learn and grow professionally? How is your boss/ manager/supervisor providing feedback about your strengths and contributions?
Are they interacting with you as if you’re an asset and making you feel appreciated? How do they express explicitly that your role and the product of your work is important to them, the team or the company? No matter how productive we are at work, our results need to be recognized as significant and we as a valuable member. We easily feel frustrated and resentment if we hear mostly or only negative feedback and ways that we can do better. Our inner critic latches onto these negative or constructive feedback and interprets them to mean we are lacking as a person. That we’re not good enough.
The last question may not apply to you if you’re self-employed, raising a family, tending to the home, or caregiving for someone. If so, I ask, how are you being supported to learn and grow personally? How is your partner, your child(ren), family, and/or friends providing feedback about your strengths and contributions?
We need to feel valued and hear encouragement from those who benefit from our ideas, labor and efforts to make their life easier. Again, kind words can quiet our inner critic, and external positive feedback can boost our self-confidence. To hear neither of this or mostly negative comments can lead us to think we’re just not good enough.
Do you feel respected by management, colleagues, loved ones, and fellow collaborators?
You’re often criticized. Your upper management and co-workers use negative labels about you or others. Gossip and criticisms are key ingredients in creating toxic work situations and experiences. You are going to feel emotionally unsafe and absorb negative energy from others even if you’re not the focus of these harsh comments. More importantly, you will not feel respected as a person nor be inclined to respect those who speak badly about others. This alone can deter you from being optimistic about your work and your desire to stay in your situation.
How does your employer create a culture of awareness and responsiveness around multicultural issues and address ongoing systemic racism?
I worked in a locked facility where lunch breaks were taken in common areas of the clinic as there was no dedicated break room. Some multilingual staff ate together and engaged in private conversations in their native tongue, although reverted back to English whenever someone was present who didn’t speak their language. Those who didn’t understand the spoken languages and could overhear the group while they worked reported to managers that they suspected they were being talked about. As a result, the entire staff were told they could no longer have conversations in common areas even during break time unless spoken in English.
This, as you may imagine, ignited confusion, anger and frustration. No one quit over that mandate. However, it bred hostility, distrust, and disengagement amongst staff and between staff members. Many multilingual staff felt devalued, disrespected and didn’t understand why it was necessary to forbid them from conversing in their native tongue in common areas during breaks. It was more inflaming when we were asked by our monolingual colleagues to provide informal interpretation services to patients who needed a translator in lieu of these colleagues obtaining formal translation services. One person stated, “It’s ok for us to speak our language only when it serves them”. Less multilingual staff volunteered or agreed to help monolingual colleagues communicate with patients and families, and it forced the monolingual staff to follow protocol and access the interpretation services which added more time for them to do their job.
Regardless of your position on whether people should be able to speak in multiple languages in the workplace, I’d like you to ponder on how banning or supporting such expression promotes creating a safe, welcoming, and culturally responsive workplace. Now, turn to your workplace. How do your employer and workplace build a safe, welcoming, and culturally responsive work culture for you and others? How are systemic racism, biases and prejudices recognized, talked about, and addressed?
Negative experiences in the above areas of your job can beat down on your work-related confidence and self-esteem. Additional toxic factors in the workplace that reduce your confidence in yourself and in your skills include:
Being directly or indirectly threatened with a lay off or termination.
Having a colleague make a complaint against you.
Having false allegations and rumors made about you.
You’re asked to do something that is unethical and/or illegal.
You don’t have tangible evidence of bad treatment towards you and no one, not even the Human Resources department, are doing something to address bad behavior.
You’re denied an increase in pay or other benefits despite meeting qualifications and criteria.
There’s no promotion or room for advancement.
Many people experience these situations at some point in their careers, and not everyone experiences low career confidence. Yet, chronic exposure to work toxicity poisons your self-confidence. Having work-related low confidence and self-esteem can lead to a variety of physical and mental health issues. You might doubt yourself and over-analyze your decisions – not just work-related ones. Lack of confidence can also slow your career progression and affect your financial stability.
What are the symptoms of low career confidence? You might relate to one or more of the following:
feeling inadequate or like a “fraud” – this is known as imposter syndrome
comparing yourself to others – leads to comparisonitis
feeling under-skilled for the role or taking on a role for which you are overqualified
focusing on mistakes over successes
struggling to manage work-related stress caused by a micromanaging boss or family member, uncooperative coworkers, organizational changes, or new responsibilities
having a fear of failure
Our pasalubong this month are suggestions to begin re-building your career/work confidence. Regardless of how your confidence started to plummet, you can nurture it back to strength through the following:
1. Practice self-compassion. We know there is no such thing as perfect or being perfect. Aiming for perfection will always lead to disappointment because it’s unobtainable and may be based on others’ criteria that we’ve come to believe is the gold standard. Give yourself a break when you make a mistake or miss the mark. You stop to acknowledge your achievements when you’re caught up in pursuing perfectionism. Making mistakes is a valuable part of life because it offers you the opportunity to reflect on the lessons from mishaps and act differently moving forward.
2. Identify your feelings. Think about when your low confidence started. Was it after an event, such as a lay-off or a bad interaction with someone? Was it multiple events that formed a chain reaction to feeling down about yourself? What emotions do you remember having during that event? What thoughts and feelings come up when you struggle in certain situations? When was the last time you were engaged, passionate, and confident in your work situation? Write out your reflections to help you get acquainted with how you’ve been impacted.
3. Take rest. Are you taking breaks during work hours? Do you make time to focus on yourself even for a few minutes during each day or are you on ‘go mode’ until your eyelids get so heavy you have no choice but to sleep? Carve out at least 5 minutes in between tasks to help you transition your focus and to prep your mind for the next task. Use the restroom, take deep breaths, look outside a window, walk from one end of the room to another, or do some neck and shoulder stretches. For longer rest time, make sure it’s at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to do what you enjoy. It could be playing with your children, catching up on a personal call, soaking in a bubble bath, dancing to your favorite song, or lying down.
4. Write down your career achievements. Research indicates that writing down accomplishments releases feel-good chemicals in the brain, increasing feelings of pride and motivation. Start by writing a list of your past career achievements – big or small. Use a journal or notebook and begin a daily practice of recording your work-related achievements.
5. Identify your strengths, skills, and talents – and build on them. You might label a lack of skills as weaknesses. I caution you to use negative labels about yourself. Criticism is food for our hungry inner critic who’s vigilant in catching what’s wrong with us and our situation. One of the best ways to increase your confidence is to get clear on your strengths and find ways to integrate them into what you do each day. Brainstorm ideas on how to use skills that you aren’t using, yet are relevant to your work or career. You’ll be more engaged, energized, and self-assured. Write down the things you do well and reflect on how you can use your strengths to do your job.
6. Work to reduce or eliminate exposure to negativity and the types of self-criticism you tell yourself. Think about how to minimize interaction with people at work who complain or have a negative outlook about you, your work, and your company. Remember, negative thoughts breed negative outlooks. If you’re the complainer, look internally and question the reasons you’re unhappy and constantly sharing your negative perspective. Do you want to keep adding to the toxicity at work or in your situation through criticism?
7. Connect with personal and professional networks for help and guidance. Get feedback from colleagues and trusted friends. Seek advice or ask someone to be a mentor to help you work through your feelings and create a plan. Surround yourself with like-minded people who also share common values around being a decent human being, not just being ‘good’ at work. You can network with smart individuals and not feel good about yourself if their behaviors and attitudes contradict how you want to go about developing professionally and personally. You don’t need social interactions that sabotage your confidence!
8. Seek counseling, therapy or other support. It can be helpful to have a person outside of our personal and professional lives to listen to what we’re going through, help us talk through our ideas and develop ways to boost our work/career-related confidence. Therapy and counseling with a mental health therapist can help uncover patterns that may be contributing to your low confidence and how you handle issues at work. Counseling through a religious or spiritual leader may help you to feel more connected spiritually and shift your perspective, especially on areas of work that you cannot influence or change.
Kindness to ourselves is kryptonite to self-criticism and fuel to seeing ourselves as very capable in our work situations. Whether you choose to stay or leave, your self-compassion and generosity in acknowledging how you’ve succeeded thus far and of your well-meaning efforts remedy low career confidence. These are antidotes to the ways that a toxic work environment has affected you.
I applaud you and your determination,
Angel, on behalf of The Giving Well