How to Spot and Shift a Toxic Culture: 6 Essential Moves Every Manager Should Know

Toxic work culture doesn't always shout - sometimes it whispers. It shows up in small behaviors, repeated patterns, and silences in meetings. And when left unaddressed, it spreads.

If you're a manager — whether you lead a small team or sit in the executive suite - you're not just responsible for results.

You're accountable for the environment where those results happen.

So, what can you do if you suspect the culture around you is toxic? Or worse - if your employees already feel it?

Here are six basic but powerful steps, backed by research, that every manager should take to recognize a toxic work environment and begin steering it toward something healthier.

1. Listen More Than You Speak

The first step in fixing a broken culture is understanding what’s broken. And the best way to do that? Listen.

Create opportunities for honest feedback — whether in 1:1s, team meetings, or anonymous channels. Don’t defend. Don’t justify. Just listen.

Even simple questions like:

• “What’s one thing you wish we did differently?”

• “When do you feel most heard or ignored at work?”

…can open doors to insights you didn’t know were there.

Toxicity hides in silence. Listening is how you make it visible.

Research shows that employee voice and perceived psychological safety are critical for team performance and innovation (Edmondson, 1999).

2. Watch for the Small Signs

Not all toxicity looks dramatic. Some of it hides in small, repeated behaviors:

• Eye rolls in meetings

• People are afraid to speak up

• A pattern of high turnover

• Gossip and cliques

• Leaders who take credit but not responsibility

  
  

Start noticing these signs — not to assign blame, but to understand where the culture is eroding trust, safety, or fairness.

These are indicators of low psychological safety and weak group cohesion, which often lead to disengagement and burnout (Kahn, 1990; Maslach & Leiter, 1997).

3. Be Transparent Even When It’s Uncomfortable

If your team senses something is wrong, pretending everything’s fine only makes it worse.

Say what’s going on. Acknowledge problems. Let your team know you see it too — and that you're committed to fixing it.

A simple statement like, “I know morale has been low lately, and I want to understand why,” can go a long way in rebuilding trust.

Authentic leadership - including transparency and vulnerability - has been linked to more substantial organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Avolio & Gardner, 2005).

4. Model the Behavior You Want to See

Culture is contagious - and it often spreads from the top down.

If you want people to speak openly, you need to speak openly. If you want people to own mistakes, start by owning yours. If you want people to respect each other, show what respect looks like — in your tone, your meetings, and your decisions.

Leaders serve as role models, and their behavior strongly influences organizational norms and ethical climate (Brown, Treviño & Harrison, 2005).

5. Celebrate the Right Things

In toxic cultures, the wrong behaviors often get rewarded, like overwork, cutthroat competition, or political maneuvering.

Make a habit of recognizing positive behaviors:

• Collaboration

• Honesty

• Kindness under pressure

• Efforts to include others

• Thoughtful risk-taking

  
  

Positive reinforcement is a key driver of motivation and culture shaping (Cameron & Spreitzer, 2012).

6. Don’t Ignore Problematic Behavior

Toxic culture thrives where bad behavior is tolerated.

If someone on your team, no matter how talented, is consistently disrespectful, unkind, or damaging to others, it must be addressed. Quickly and clearly.

You don’t need to call someone out publicly. But you do need to have the conversation.

“Bad apples” have been shown to poison group dynamics, reduce morale, and increase turnover if left unaddressed (Felps, Mitchell & Byington, 2006).

What you allow is what you endorse. Culture is shaped just as much by what you don’t do as by what you do.

Final Thought

Culture isn’t just HR’s job. It lives in every interaction, every meeting, and every decision managers make.

You don’t need a 50-page strategy to start making positive changes. Start with these six steps. Start where you are. The actions outlined here are intentionally basic and accessible, designed for any manager who wants to take ownership of the tone and trust on their team.

But meaningful, lasting change often requires more than local effort. A skilled HR professional can help you build on these foundations by designing structured interventions, leading company-wide initiatives, establishing systems of accountability, and maintaining the momentum of culture work over time.

Because in every toxic culture, people are waiting for someone to lead differently. Let it be you, and let HR help.

References

• Avolio, B. J., & Gardner, W. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 16(3), 315–338.

• Brown, M. E., Treviño, L. K., & Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97(2), 117–134.

• Cameron, K. S., & Spreitzer, G. M. (Eds.). (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship. Oxford University Press.

• Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.

• Felps, W., Mitchell, T. R., & Byington, E. (2006). How, when, and why bad apples spoil the barrel: Negative group members and dysfunctional groups. Research in Organizational Behavior, 27, 175–222.

• Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692–724.

• Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (1997). The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It. Jossey-Bass.