Mental health awareness workshops are becoming more popular these days. We are becoming more and more aware of the need to protect our mental health and reduce the stress and workplace anxiety that has gone over the roof recently (based on my Linkedin connections’ updates). My personal experience has been a rollercoaster working in the most healthy cultures and sometimes having to navigate toxic ones. I would say that I am lucky in that perspective having worked at least 90% of my time with good teams. However, recently, a Linkedin hashtag has gone viral shedding the light on a heartbreaking incident of the death of an employee in a big brand company. It was hard to tell what exactly happened but it seemed that she was working overtime for years.

It’s easy to tell if you’re working in a toxic workplace but sometimes it’s hard to communicate what’s exactly happening. Here are a few clues that hopefully will help you spot the negative attitude and fix it if you’re in a leadership position.

• Blaming others: where individuals fear taking accountability of their own work and keep pointing the finger towards colleagues/contractors/anyone
• Power-imbalance: Where individuals have little power to drive the change in their area of expertise but a random fellow is given too much power neglecting the organisational hierarchy
• Voicing opinions vs silencing: Where a couple members of the team are always voicing their opinion freely and the rest of the team is filled with silence
• Passive aggressive tune: Usually comes from management or over-empowered toxic individuals 
• Lack of roles and responsibilities: Simply when colleagues are stepping over each other toes trying to own work and decisions
• Micro-management: Speaks for itself
• Refuse to share the knowledge: Is a critical sign that every leader should be looking for, within their teams
• Internal conflict: The lack of conflict resolution and poor management can lead to a drop in professionalism and increase of personal revenge
• condescending attitude: can be energy draining 

These are the most common signs that I have noticed when working in unhealthy environments. Sometimes, it is not worth trying to fix. Moving jobs can be the best solution where possible. Otherwise, here’s a few tips that I find to work:

• Remain professional: despite being attacked directly or indirectly, continue to deliver the business goals
• Set boundaries: Either using assertive communication or by escalating the case to a good manager
• Document it: document incidents and keep track of where things go wrong
• Support: Always support little initiatives that drive the business for a better culture
• Lead: do not sit in the observer seat, lead the change and make it happen
• Leave: always leave the building with head up. Despite the fear of the unknown future.