Don't You Know That You're Toxic?

SIGNS, STRATEGIES AND TACTICS FOR DEALING WITH TOXIC LEADERSHIP

Let's Talk, People: Episode 21

[00:00:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hi, I'm Emily Frieze-Kemeny, host of Let's Talk, People Where Leaders come to bridge humanity and profitability informed by a couple decades of work. As a head of talent and leadership development, I'm here to amplify leaders so they can exalt. Everyone and everything they touch. Are you ready? 'Cause it's about to get real.

[00:00:28] Let's talk, people.

[00:00:33] It is such a pleasure to have Diane Garon on Let's Talk, People Today. Diane was the former Chief People Officer of IBM, responsible for the global HR function and successfully transformed the company culture to support a massive portfolio shift. Requiring innovation, agility, and continuous learning leveraging AI.

[00:00:54] Diane was very early in bringing AI into IBM and is a real innovator in that field and in many other places within the HR function. I was one of the lucky ones who got a chance to work for her. At that time in her career, Diane was elected as HR Executive of the year in 2018, and a fellow of the National Academy of HR.

[00:01:19] After her 19-year stint at IBM, Diane taught at Harvard Business School, and today Diane is a senior advisor at Boston Consulting Group where she serves as a coach and advisor to CEOs and CHROs, and serves as an executive advisory board member at Semper Veens, a venture capital fund focused on early stage human capital technologies.

[00:01:42] She is also an advisor to two human capital startups, Valence, which is an AI coaching platform, and CTS, which is an organization network analysis tool. Diane has written multiple articles for Harvard Business School Magazine, both focused on The Dilemmas of Managers and Managers Can't Do It All,

[00:02:02] winning the Warren Benni Prize as the best article on leadership in 2023. Diane holds a bachelor's degree from Trinity College, University of Toronto, and a master's in industrial relations from Cornell University. Diane joins us today to help us with something we do a lot of coaching and advising on, which is navigating toxic leaders.

[00:02:24] And as you can imagine, one of the most important places we're gonna start is to define what toxic even means. This is something we talk about a lot, but it's obviously very, very nuanced in many circumstances. Some are really clear cut and non-negotiable, but there are many that are nuanced, and we're gonna talk about how we navigate all of those aspects.

[00:02:43] Let's jump in. Diane, it is such a pleasure to have you on. Let's Talk People. Very excited to do that. We go way back and it's so fun to be back and connecting and sharing some perspective on a topic that I have no doubt people will have lots of feelings about, which is toxic leadership in the workplace.

[00:03:03] Diane Gherson: It's a fun topic. It comes up all the time.

[00:03:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It sure does, and it's not easy. There was a stat that I saw that said more than half of people, the way they handle toxic situations is they ignore them, and that really resonated. We talk about them a lot, but that doesn't mean we handle them.

[00:03:19] Diane Gherson: Yeah. And then when someone does it's news because there's such a pent-up demand for people to be really good allies.

[00:03:28] It's just, I think people don't really know how

[00:03:30] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: to be good allies. Yeah, I'm excited to get into it. I wanted to start at a place we like to go, which is not always common when we talk about work. If you wouldn't mind playing with us, Diane, we'd love to go back in time and maybe if you could tell us just a little bit about your childhood that might give us a little window into who you are today.

[00:03:47] Diane Gherson: I was born in London and I'm a twin. My father was away in Rome at the time, and my poor mother had to cope with all of us in our diapers and all of that. We did then move to Rome when I was about one, and then later moved to my mother's home country, which was Canada. I spent 10 years there before being shipped off to boarding school back in England when my father went as a diplomat to different countries.

[00:04:11] So I was there for all of my high school, then returned to Canada for college. So that, that kind of sums it up to the age of 21. Anyway.

[00:04:20] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The one thing that came to mind as I was listening to you is it probably isn't a surprise that you ended up in a highly complex global environment. Yeah. Your roots were in being able to be global and in different environments from very early in life.

[00:04:34] So that, that stood out as I listened to you. It's very cool.

[00:04:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Love it.

[00:04:38] Diane Gherson: And adoptable. I mean, I think moving around does force you, particularly moving into different cultures, forces a level of adaptability that people who've lived in the same place their whole lives. Don't have access to in the same way.

[00:04:52] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: From your perspective, Diane, when you look back at your career, what's something that you feel really proud of, or was this kind of a pivotal moment in your journey? Wow.

[00:05:02] Diane Gherson: Certainly for me, arriving at IBM was something I never really expected. I was a management consultant in compensation and benefits and got hired by this chief people officer at the time to be the head of compensation and benefits, and that was a big move for me.

[00:05:18] I've never, I. Managed such a large group of people, and I knew virtually nothing about benefits. So that was like a massive learning for me and I loved every minute of it. I'd been a consultant, so I had done projects before and I was used to running maybe marathons but not continuous marathons. IBM, a world of continuous marathons, so I had to, you know, I had to figure out how to lead through that and how to survive it in myself.

[00:05:44] Then I had the great opportunity to become a head of HR for an organization that included consulting. 'Cause we just acquired PWC Consulting and I knew nothing about being an HR business partner, but here I was leading this HR organization that was fabulous and we did some really, really great things there, including my team And I got a patent for an early version of AI to predict who would leave the organization.

[00:06:08] So that was kind of exciting. And then of course as head of HR, there's just no more exhilarating job. And it was the highlight really of, of my

[00:06:16] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: professional life to be in that role. I think that consulting background just gives you a way of looking at the world of work, always problem solving, always curious

[00:06:26] 'cause that's what consultants do. So I, in some ways it was almost, I think, perfect training to then move into these senior HR leadership roles 'cause you probably looked at the function very differently.

[00:06:36] Diane Gherson: Definitely and always felt a little bit of an outsider, which caused me always to want to learn more, right?

[00:06:41] Because I, I didn't grow up in HR.

[00:06:44] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's funny, I ended up growing up in it, but I also felt a little bit like an outsider too. I think it's 'cause I was supposed to be an entrepreneur and I didn't know it. But it's funny how we all put on the act of showing up in the roles that we're doing, even though there's different dimensions to who we are.

[00:06:59] Awesome. I'm gonna make a bit of a tie back to something you said. One of my hypotheses, which I'm curious to get your thoughts on, is this idea that we are kind of in continuous marathon mode. Yes, definitely. Reflective of IBM and our experiences there, but I think that might be how everybody's feeling a bit right now, is that the pace at which things are happening from a technology environmental sociopolitical, like there's so many things that.

[00:07:25] Feel like they're accelerating at this exact moment, that that idea of feeling like you're running a marathon continuously is our norm. And then I wanna add to it, which is our topic that we wanted to unpack today, which is about toxic leadership. I'm just wondering if there may be a relationship between our need to talk about this topic of toxic leadership and the acceleration and intensity.

[00:07:46] Just curious of how that feels for you. I

[00:07:49] Diane Gherson: mean, I think when you're worn out, you have lower tolerance for anything, right? I mean, it's just like the slightest thing can cause you to flip, right? And so it's really important not to get worn out emotionally or physically. And one of the things that I figured out when I was head of HR was that my son was a competitive rower in college and.

[00:08:11] He knew more about what to eat and when and sleep and all of those things than I had ever learned. And I thought about it, and I realized leadership or really being in an organization like IBM is a little like an extreme sport. We're doing ourselves no good if we don't treat it like an extreme sport.

[00:08:32] And extreme sports actually are quite advanced in thinking about all of these things. So they can be at their peak performance. And we just were way behind on that. So I, I introduced that actually into our leadership and I personally have gotten a lot out of it. And I think the whole area of wellness and understanding our, our body clock and rest and deep sleep and REM and all that has taken huge strides in the last few years.

[00:08:57] I think we've made huge advances and I think we need to take advantage of that because in many respects, work has become an extreme sport. That's right.

[00:09:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It sounds baffling, but I still think this is, believe it or not, a newish trend, that our cognitive ability, our productivity, our creativity is tied to our physical and emotional wellbeing.

[00:09:19] We did not ever talk about this. Right. It's huge and I'm, I'm so glad that that's at least starting to come in. I'm not sure that we're allowing people to work in a way where they can calibrate. We've learned, I think, to override what our bodies are telling us emotionally and physically. So I think that's really fascinating.

[00:09:40] Let's keep going a little bit deeper into this. So there's this piece around the consequences of doing work as an extreme sport. The pace at which things are coming at us, and that doesn't mean all of us end up being categorized as toxic and to talk about toxic. I think it's helpful maybe for us to say a little bit about what we think that even means.

[00:10:01] So it would be great. Diane, if you could give us your perspective on why you think this is important for us to be talking about and what we even think it means. Because it can be a little amorphous.

[00:10:12] Diane Gherson: Yeah, I really, I think we came into the lexicon around the time of the pandemic. I don't know. I don't know why it erupted at that point, but

[00:10:19] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Well, because people were suffering, right?

[00:10:21] It was, you have fear for your life, your safety, right, the wellbeing of your family. So I think that maybe we just got more sensitive or we got more honest. Right? Could be. Could be.

[00:10:31] Diane Gherson: But I think there's also, maybe there's been a exploration of the different ends of the spectrum, right? For example. Some companies are criticized for being bureaucratic.

[00:10:42] Bureaucracy is kind of uptight, lots of emotional regulation, lots of controls. And then at the other end of the spectrum there are no controls and emotional regulation. And I think what happened was with tech, a lot of them grew up in the bro culture where there was that sort of crude jokes and all that sort of thing, and they got bigger and bigger.

[00:11:02] And that might've been fine when it was three guys who knew each other well. But then it becomes like. Company like Tesla, and it permeates the whole culture. So you've got that, which some people might call authentic. And then you've got the other end of the spectrum, which is called bureaucratic. Somehow, I think we gotta figure out that neither one is acceptable anymore, if it ever was, but, but there are advantages to being authentic and there are advantages to having controls that prevent things from totally getting out of hand.

[00:11:33] Abigail Charlu: Yeah,

[00:11:33] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think that's so important. Let's say the majority of organizations want authenticity without bureaucracy. Having just enough structure and controls that people can thrive and that you don't have to be so careful that you can't feel you can move. How do we set that as a definition early on? And I think things like code of conduct is not exactly it either.

[00:11:53] Diane Gherson: I think code of conduct is really important, but the problem with most codes of conduct is you could drive a truck through any definition, right? They sound great and they, they're somewhat helpful, but certainly after hashtag me too, I took a look at the one in IBM and it had been in place for a long time and revered and everyone had to sign off on it every January and so forth.

[00:12:14] But the problem was it didn't define things. It didn't define what harassment was, it didn't define what a romantic relationship was. And at what point in that romantic relationship should you disclose it? Who would you disclose it to? What would happen if you didn't? So I think there's a huge need to be quite specific about what you mean.

[00:12:34] The one we struggled with the most, and I think the murder of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter opened up people's views to realize that. How one person might receive a comment might be different than how someone else might, and it might be shaped by the environment that they grew up in and their lived experience.

[00:12:52] So I think that helped us as we thought it through, but I think there's an argument for saying it's not how it was received by the individual. That is fair and a fair way of describing what bullying is or harassment is, as an example, or, or lack of respect. And it can't be in the old days. Well, I didn't mean to say that I didn't, you know, I never intended that.

[00:13:12] It's not the person who did it either. But you've gotta, you gotta take what actually was said, how it was said, the tone, it was said, and then look at it as a disinterested observer and say. Was that disrespectful? Was that harassment? I mean, obviously some cases pulling somebody onto your lap in the middle of a dinner, that's pretty obvious.

[00:13:31] Right? Exactly. But I'm just talking about those other incidences where it might be taken as a microaggression by one person, but a disinterested observer, understanding the context that that person grew up in. Okay. Would still say what? That did not cross a line, but let's have a conversation about why it was felt to be a microaggression.

[00:13:50] There's a need to have a conversation, but it's not necessarily just the way it was received. I think there's a need to be fair to the person who was on the other end, not gang up on that person, but help them understand how what they said or did was received by the individual and what they might have done differently or what they need to be more sensitive to.

[00:14:13] And the implications

[00:14:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: of it, right? What could, how could that create a perception?

[00:14:17] Diane Gherson: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:18] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: When I listen to you, it almost feels like there's two buckets. There's the bucket that you were just talking about, which is somebody experienced it a certain way. And maybe other people with other lived experiences or sensitivities around it could experience it that way.

[00:14:33] But there is some gray, and maybe even we don't fully define it as toxic. And then as you were describing, and we'll kind of get to what's the toxic version of this, maybe just in terms of leadership behaviors outside of the sexual harassment would be really, there's no debate. It's not perception-based.

[00:14:51] And I guess the question is, is there a definition of toxic that fits in that kind of box that is cross-cultural and cross org? Or does the definition of toxic need to be, let's say, co-created with an organizational setting?

[00:15:06] Diane Gherson: Well, I highly recommend co-creation. That's what we did at IBM. And so we got to look at different cultures.

[00:15:12] We, I mean, we, we worked really hard to co-create it with the whole population, and therefore it's owned and operated by IBMers, which is I think, the way to do it. I think the only one that I would say definitely doesn't create any disagreement is unethical behavior. That's a line that was currently being crossed in the US administration today, and yet some people think it's justified.

[00:15:33] They understand it's maybe illegal or unethical, but for other reasons they feel like it's justified. Even that has in has raised questions and certainly I think in cultures where people feel like they're victims of something, then they might. Justify under that circumstance that unethical or illegal behavior is okay, that's in society, right inside a company.

[00:15:56] Hopefully that's not translated.

[00:15:59] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Oh, that feels right. Just today I saw something that came out from Harvard Business Review that gave some characteristics. I thought that was helpful of describing toxic because in addition to your example of unethical, which is really clear cut, the rest of the descriptors are a bit open for interpretation and maybe work as a bundle.

[00:16:21] Let me just run through the list and I'm just curious to get your reaction to it. Lack of self-awareness, lack of empathy. Only motivated by self-interest, which to me, that queued me into some of the things that I've observed and coach people on demonstrating inconsistent behavior, taking advantage of power dynamics, micromanaging them.

[00:16:39] That's pretty fuzzy, right? Setting unreasonable expectations, belittling and demoralizing, clear. Blaming others a bit clearer, overconfident. So what I found was so interesting about this list, some of those, if you broke it apart. Wouldn't be as clear and the ones that popped for me was only motivated by self-interest.

[00:16:57] I think usually clues me in that there's a risk there for it, regardless of whether it is toxic. That would be something to look for. Takes advantage of power dynamics. I definitely have seen that. And then obviously the belittling and demoralizing. I'm just curious what that sparks for you in terms of this.

[00:17:13] Can we define toxic?

[00:17:15] Diane Gherson: I think those are so subject to interpretation that they would be very hard to actually address the definition that I think about, and I don't know if there's an official definition, but the one that I would look at would be one that's disrespectful, unethical, abusive, ruthless.

[00:17:36] Non-inclusive. That feels right. You can actually say yes or no to those. I, I think, and abusive is again, it requires that if there was a, a reasonable onlooker who is disinterested, would they see abuse that I think. Attributing motive to people is a very hard thing to do. Well, courts have a hard time with that too, but I would rather go with that definition than this definition of only in motivated by self-interest.

[00:18:06] Well, that's attributing someone's motivation and no one has only one motivation. Look, power dynamics can be abuse. Of course, you can abuse power, you can ask for sexual favors. You can ask that on a date. I mean, there's all sorts of things you can do that's abusive as that power dynamic, which is why companies are so careful in that respect.

[00:18:24] But if I think about the motivation part. There is a motivation and there is a hero worship of, I've put in quotation marks, air quotes, great CEOs who are inspirational to their people, but they are motivated by the performance of their company above all else, and so they end up having abusive behaviors.

[00:18:45] But I would measure the abusive behaviors as opposed to, okay, you're motivated for the success of your company. One of the things that leaders tend to forget is they make a lot of money when their company performs. They may even have a lot of money at risk. A lot of their personal wealth may be invested, but it's rare acceptance startups for the rest of the employees to have the same amount of risk and reward that they have, and yet they assume it.

[00:19:17] And there was that great article that it came out in LinkedIn today called Apple Needs a New Asshole in Charge, and it reveres what Steve Jobs did. Okay, well, Steve Jobs have a lot on the line. It was his company, he started it and he excoriated people in public. I mean, he humiliated people in public all the time, and he got away with it.

[00:19:38] I mean, did it inspire the best performance? Probably not, but he got away with it because of his role as having started the company, and he was passionate about Apple doing well. A lot of people in Apple at that time were also owners and had considerable ownership stakes, and so they went along with it because of that as well.

[00:20:00] You don't find that in Apple today, so there's this mixing up of people's motivations. I think it gets in the way of understanding toxicity.

[00:20:10] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think that's really important. And to name part of it is the empathy 'cause I think sometimes it's very easy to blame leadership. Any of us in those roles would be criticized as well.

[00:20:21] And so I think there is a part here around being empathetic for the pressures that the more senior you get, the harder it can be in terms of the stress that you're under. And losing, maybe touch with the humanity. But the other thing that you named Diane, that I really appreciate that we need to be talking about more is we have heard a story that that type of behavior, that yelling at people, that intensity.

[00:20:48] Even cursing, right? Oh, that's what sports coaches have been doing for decades. That's what makes people better performers. But what about the compare? What if they had the vision and the passion, but they used it for good? They used it with kindness. Would they get better performance? I just recently had a guest on who wrote a book about this, James Re, the book called Red Helicopter, and he demonstrates that his company and even the ones he invested in before that got outsized performance because of that type of leadership.

[00:21:17] But we haven't had the compare to be able to prove maybe you got some short-term results that toxic style does not actually sustain or drive the type of performance we know these organizations are capable of.

[00:21:30] Diane Gherson: No, that's a great point. I mean, we know this from neuroscience, right? Is that the amygdala takes over and your imagination, your ability, capacity to innovate and be productive and to focus goes down.

[00:21:40] And so when someone yells at you or humiliates you or belittles you, all of those things happen typically to somebody. So we, we know that maybe we didn't know that before. I also think another thing's changed. We've got a new generation of employees in the workplace who just won't put up with it, particularly women.

[00:21:59] We all know the cost of toxic workplace is much higher attrition that has a very serious cost to accompany. So I think followership matters now way more than it used to. And the accompanying reason for that is that Glassdoor and all kinds of logs that are out there actually reveal what it's like to work inside the company.

[00:22:20] So I think there's some of that that goes on as well. That's different than in the Steve Jobs era.

[00:22:26] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right. Totally agree. I know we have a bunch of questions that we have from leaders and managers. Abby, let me turn it to you to share what we wanted to answer.

[00:22:36] Diane Gherson: All right, Abby,

[00:22:36] Abigail Charlu: go. Let's do it. Our first situation submitted, the manager said, “My colleague, who is very close to my boss, has been representing my team's work in a derogatory way and excluding me from key decision making meetings.

[00:22:54] How do I navigate this given the relationship they have with my boss?”

[00:23:02] Diane Gherson: So there's a lot of hearsay here. How do I know that it's been misrepresented to my boss and how do I know that I've been excluded from the meeting because of that? Or maybe there was a better reason. Maybe they needed to cover other things in the meeting.

[00:23:16] It had nothing to do with my job. I don't know. So I, I guess I would just really wanna poke at that one and understand. How much of this is hearsay? How much of this is a victim mentality around not feeling like I'm getting the attention I want, and so better to have a discussion with your boss, right?

[00:23:33] About how am I doing, what could I be doing better? Can we talk about this piece of work that my team did? Is there something that they could have done better that I, as a leader, I could have improved on? Was it useful? But have that discussion one-on-one with your boss and see if you can clear the air right.

[00:23:51] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think that's a really important perspective. Diane is. We do often make assumptions, and it's the biggest risk. You go to a 10, right? You get so upset and offended, and you make a whole narrative. So I do think it's sometimes helpful to go three steps back before you jump forward. I. The only thing I would add is, let's say, let's just kind of play this out, that there was evidence, let's say it was a reply all email or something that was stated in a staff meeting, and so you have seen your colleague kind of stab you in the back or undermine your effectiveness maybe to get ahead or whatever.

[00:24:27] Again, we can't assume the why, but that's the story you've told yourself. I still think it helps to start with the boss and to ask for their guidance and perspective on how they're seeing the situation. And then I think it's also helpful at a team level to talk about roles and responsibilities and expectations of one another.

[00:24:43] So there's something to me here when I hear this about calibrating of if there is something that's wrong with performance, how do we handle those situations in a way that builds trust and collaboration health in our team? Did somebody expect something different in terms of inclusiveness in meetings? I had a situation where I had colleagues who had a lot of history with the organization because of it.

[00:25:07] They believed they needed to have a seat at the table. Yeah, yeah. They didn't. They didn't. Right. It was more like they had a need for high control, but it wasn't efficient. But I think when you don't have those conversations and calibrate with one another on roles. Decision-making authority who you need to bring in and not bring in.

[00:25:24] It leaves things up for risk, both risk for people to backstab each other and maybe be toxic or risk that you feel hurt because you had a different expectation. Maybe you're more collaborative. I.

[00:25:36] Diane Gherson: And it also sometimes just means reframing what's important to you. A great example is not being invited to a meeting to me, because imagine that I report to you and you report to Abby, and Abby holds a meeting and she invites me, but she doesn't invite you.

[00:25:52] In the old days, that would be horrendous. Of course, you have to listen to everything, right? Because even though I'm the one that's presenting in the meeting, or I'm the one whose opinion Abby wants you, somehow you have to be there too. And I think most companies have realized that's actually not a good use of your time.

[00:26:08] And if you wanted a readout of the meeting, you can use AI to get that, but you've got other things to get done. And it's just chewing up masses amount of time for all of us to be in the same meeting.

[00:26:20] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: There's a history of that being translated to your worth, right? If I was important, I should have been included too.

[00:26:28] But I agree with you, Diane, like you can't have it both ways. You can't complain about too many meetings and the lack of efficiency and not getting things done, and you can only do your work in the evening and then also wanna be in every meeting. But I think this is a real shift for many of us. But I, I think that's a great illustration.

[00:26:42] Abigail Charlu: Especially because one of the defining factors was non-inclusive behaviors, right? So it takes both clarity on one party and avoiding making assumptions on the part of the other party, or asking for clarity. Why was I not included in this meeting? I.

[00:26:59] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Or an agreement upfront.

[00:27:01] Diane Gherson: Right, right, right. Only the people who were have speaking roles will be invited to the meeting and that, right?

[00:27:07] Yeah.

[00:27:08] Abigail Charlu: Yeah. So

[00:27:08] Diane Gherson: good,

[00:27:09] Abigail Charlu: good stuff. Our next leader said, the head of our North America business is a bully. Everyone knows, it accepts apparently the CEO. It is having a real impact on my wellbeing and that of my team. How do I politically navigate this? Or do I just continue to buffer my team and work on my own personal wellbeing?

[00:27:34] Diane Gherson: So we've all experienced that one. And I can say as the head of HR, I worked very hard on this and I, I think systemically, this isn't what this person is asking us 'cause they're, they're not managing the system. But systemically, when it works well, you first of all need to train managers, have them understand what's acceptable and not acceptable.

[00:27:54] Obviously you have to have that code of contact that we talked about earlier. But then you need to measure, and so this person only has recourse in the measurement part. So for us in IBM, there are microcultures everywhere in a big company and we would be able to spot patterns and we would be able to parachute in, see what's going on, hold the manager accountable, whatever we needed to do, discipline them, whatever.

[00:28:19] And in fact, we even have an index where we identified managers who had low engagement, had low inclusion scores, and we could help them go to training. If they didn't go to training, they were out of a management job, so that needs to be done. But this person that wrote to you, maybe working in an environment that doesn't have the expectations, the training, the measurement, and the action that I just described, and so they're only real recourse.

[00:28:45] It is through whatever channels the company has for measurement or receiving feedback.

[00:28:51] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think the other thing that that just sparked for me, Diane, is when you're trying to evaluate whether it's safe to speak up or what's acceptable, those are indicators that I would look for even when I'm. Guiding somebody to interview for a job.

[00:29:08] Whether you wanna join a culture, that's a pretty tangible way to know how much is gonna be allowed to take place there 'cause you're right, if you don't have that foundation of Code of Conduct, let's say, team agreements, ways that they measure that truly are safe so that people can share what's really going on.

[00:29:28] There's just not a lot of controls in place. The other thing for me is I. You have to be realistic. I mean, I coach a lot of senior leaders on this. The behavior of the CEO and what they wanna see or not see does create a tone. And you, you may have to work within that context. And maybe the power is more, not only about how you treat your team members, but how do you treat your colleagues?

[00:29:53] How do you create coalitions of support and kindness and high performance in healthy ways that will change the future? So I just think sometimes even if you feel like you're stuck, maybe you're not as stuck in the toxicity as you think you are.

[00:30:07] Diane Gherson: Well, hopefully this person gets found out. The question that you got, Abby, was what do I do as a manager?

[00:30:13] Do I be a buffer? And that is the answer. I mean, of course it is. You don't wanna pass along toxicity down the organization. You've gotta find a way of buffering in, and that's exhausting. But it does take a heroic manager to be able to do it well. And I've seen that. I've seen that over and over again, that they can, but they will move on and they'll move on to work for someone better, and then the employees are stuck again.

[00:30:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right. Yeah. It goes back to what you said at the beginning about the self work, that if you are in that situation, you're gonna be holding a lot of emotion for the organization and for yourself, and how do you take care of yourself in all those ways, in terms of rest and exercise and healthy eating and breathing techniques.

[00:30:51] How are you supporting yourself to be able to hold that space, because that's hard. Yeah.

[00:30:55] Abigail Charlu: Yeah, let's go to the kind of flip side of that. Another leader said, based on comments in my engagement survey, I think I have a toxic leader on my team, so this person is higher up and recognizes that toxicity. What are some of the subtle signs that I should look for to uncover toxicity and what should I do about it?

[00:31:18] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I'll give one example that immediately comes to mind. It goes back to the example you were sharing, Diane, of let's say my direct report gets invited to a meeting with my boss that I'm not included in. One of the patterns that I've seen is if it is a toxic leader, they are never gonna let that happen.

[00:31:38] They are so careful, right? Because they're covering up for any leakage of either their lack of capability or the bullying that they're doing. So that's, to me, always one sign is if they feel really unsafe for me to meet with one of their team members. Yeah, that sends off a little bit of an alarm bell.

[00:31:56] Or let's say you're the more senior leader and you join a staff meeting or a gathering. You can see how careful people are in the room about what they say. You can see how they're watching the leader. Those are some of the little micro examples that I, I've noticed.

[00:32:11] Diane Gherson: Those are great ones. I was gonna say skip level meetings, and I always get a lot out of skip level meetings just to hear what work is for them, what's going on.

[00:32:19] Yeah, just say how careful they are about what they say. The other thing, as we moved into Agile working. I attended standups and I got a lot out of seeing how people worked with each other in standups, and I think one of the. Downfalls of sort of hierarchical organizations is that you're, you tend to be just surrounded by your direct reports or their direct reports, right?

[00:32:39] No one below that. Unless you find ways of town halls just don't do it, right? So you've gotta find ways of engaging, but standups, which is different than. A group of people come and preview something with you and get approval and run off and work with their team instead, you're actually working with the team.

[00:32:56] Yeah, and I think Agile really has broken down some of those hierarchical boundaries and I, I certainly got a lot more insight once we moved to Agile at IBM.

[00:33:04] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's so true. Another two things related that were coming to me was who are the people who others would feel safe to open up to? Sometimes it's HR, the more senior you get, you need to have eyes and ears on the ground.

[00:33:18] So if they won't open up to you, who are those people who can listen for you? Or others might feel safer talking to them, and they know. And have the discretion of how to share back with you in a way that respects the sanctity of their relationships with others. And then also I have found that when senior leaders, they go out in the field, let's say whatever that looks like in the context of an organization and the type of business they are, and they do one-to-ones.

[00:33:46] It's kind of like the skip levels. They just hear things like it's almost, you need the pulse, like you need to be out there getting the pulse. And I, and then my last one is if there's something going on with business results, you think your strategy's clear. You think your metrics are clear and you're not getting the results you want.

[00:34:01] There is somewhere in your org that I believe there's toxicity at play because people can't fix things. You're getting capped out at some point in leadership where the best thinking and improvements are not able to be heard.

[00:34:15] Diane Gherson: Interesting. Yeah, I, I think mentorships can help. Just thinking about this person who wrote to Abby, that if you have mentors seated in your organ, mentees in your organization, high potentials, that gives you that trusted relationship where you hear a lot more.

[00:34:32] I always got a lot out of that because over time you develop a lot of trust and they'll say things that maybe they wouldn't say if you were doing a round table with a group of employees.

[00:34:41] Abigail Charlu: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:41] Diane Gherson: So I think that's, that's another avenue. I think Brown peoples obviously help as well. You get at things certain, some of the, the dynamics that you described, Emily, and then finally having a meeting with your senior team and saying, you know what?

[00:34:55] I looked at my engagement survey and we've got toxicity and this is. And let me just talk a little bit about what I see as toxic and the kinds of behaviors that are unacceptable and what I'm gonna do if I find out about it. And so be really clear about consequences of toxicity. And here are some sources.

[00:35:13] Here's some support if you feel this may be in your organization and training or coaching, or whatever those things are, so that they realize that they've gotta change their behavior.

[00:35:23] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I really appreciate you said this even a little bit before Diane, the combination of expectations and support. None of us know how to lead people naturally.

[00:35:31] It's like one in 10 is the stats in terms of the traits that go along with people management skills. So how unfair is it that it's just, here's what I expect, but not here's how to do it.

[00:35:42] Diane Gherson: Right. And what's so great is coaching with AI is available now and no company can afford to give everybody a coach, but now they have this.

[00:35:52] And the impact is huge because for someone who knows they have a problem confronting, for example, a low performer or mm-hmm. Dealing with a situation that's tough and they may sort of give vent to a very unproductive way of discussion. They can practice it with a coach and, and get feedback.

[00:36:10] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It used to be that you'd have an HR partner who you could go to, but that's not possible in every organizational system that they have the bandwidth to work with every single people manager.

[00:36:20] And then, as you said, sometimes it's real time and you need the advice in that exact moment. And I love the accessibility of that for people, and that's a real game changer.

[00:36:28] Diane Gherson: Yeah. Yeah. It's a great article in the Financial Times on this yesterday, and it talked about three companies that have offerings of coaches.

[00:36:37] Who are they called? They're called Coach Bots.

[00:36:39] Abigail Charlu: Yeah. And,

[00:36:40] Diane Gherson: uh, so Valence, which has Nadia, and that's actually, I'm an advisor to that company, Kai, which is, um, Ezra is the company that offers that and then a new one by HubSpot that they've offered to their own employees called Coach Hub. And the coach is called Amy.

[00:36:56] So we've got three that are out there already, and they're available 24 by seven. Obviously a lot of people don't wanna open up their vulnerabilities, particularly if they're a toxic leader. Right? And two, a human being, but they certainly can more easily with, with a robo coach. So I think there's a lot of advantage here, A lot of opportunity.

[00:37:14] Yeah, it's exciting.

[00:37:16] Abigail Charlu: Yeah. Really practical strategies to both diagnose and help resolve some of these issues. Thank you both. Our last situation. My team was recently engaged in rigorous debate about an important business decision. One person came out of the meeting visibly upset. It got back to me that they said they felt personally attacked and that they felt the meeting was another example of a toxic team environment.

[00:37:45] How should I address the situation with the team members and with my team? I'm also reflecting on what role I had to play.

[00:37:54] Diane Gherson: Well, good. That the person took it seriously and didn't just shrug it off. Right? Yeah. So that's the first step. But I think the second one is you gotta sit down with this individual.

[00:38:02] What did you hear? How did it feel? Let's replay what happened, what could have gone better? What should that person have said differently? What triggered you? And then it goes back to, was that reasonable or was there just. Something specific with that particular individual. It was a bad day. They were feeling vulnerable anyway, blah, blah, blah.

[00:38:21] In which case they might own up to that and say, and other day, it wouldn't have been as bad, or if it hadn't been about something that matters to me and my family so much that I took it emotionally. I mean, it was all kinds of reasons why people feel they were being attacked, but it could be. It could be that there was a way that they made the decision that some things were said that should never have been said, and then that is really important to get a handle on and to make sure it doesn't happen again.

[00:38:45] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I agree. I really appreciate the self-reflection too. I think that's important that we always see what's allowed is a reflection of what we role model as leaders. The thing that also is coming up for me when I think about this one is I would probe a lot about things that are happening outside of that room.

[00:39:03] It is possible the one-off situation was triggering, and I, that's very possible, but usually we get up really upset when things build up and it can be small slights. But I, I would wonder what else is happening within this team dynamic. And then it's almost like there's a conversation with the person who had the feelings and is.

[00:39:22] Reporting it as toxic to them with the person maybe who spoke and engaged in a way that seemed toxic to understand what's going on for them. And then at some point I think it's a reset around what does it mean to be a part of this team? How do we wanna collaborate? And just, there's very few things where it's something starting besides maybe a project team.

[00:39:40] Usually you're always in motion, but it can be helpful to to do a reset and yes, engage the team in like a deeper conversation around relationships and trust and collaboration expectations. And. To check back in with each other around how we wanna be together.

[00:39:55] Diane Gherson: That is such a great point. That is such a great point.

[00:39:58] The chance for having a team reset is every day. Yeah. It's not just on day one. And often what can happen is people have been on a team for a while, kind of own the team culture. Yes. And they don't. And so by doing the reset, everybody owns the team culture. Yeah.

[00:40:16] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I love how you said that we're gonna bring it to a wrap.

[00:40:19] And so the way that we like to close, Diane, is we believe that all of us as leaders have a role to play. We're all a link in a chain. So when you think about your purpose, what do you think is the pattern that you are here to break as a leader?

[00:40:32] Diane Gherson: For me, it's not taking action. I think there's a habit where I see something and I don't take action enough and.

[00:40:42] I know how to be an ally. I've gotta be a much better ally in certain situations than I have been. I've been more tentative.

[00:40:51] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Thank you for saying that. I think we all have a version of that and maybe we're in a time that's kind of waking that up in us since I think that's so insightful. And thank you for naming that.

[00:41:03] And thank you for being with us. This was such a rich conversation.

[00:41:07] Diane Gherson: Thank you. Always fun to be with you, Emily.

[00:41:09] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You too, Diane. Thank you so much.

[00:41:11] Diane Gherson: Great to work with you, Abby. Bye-bye.

[00:41:15] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Takeaways. I am really reflecting on this idea of how do you know when it's toxic or not toxic? 'cause that is in some cases, subjective.

[00:41:27] We need to make sure we're being really clear on expectations in things like Code of Conduct. I think it was so helpful how Diane shared that maybe they haven't been detailed enough and that fuzziness is left the door open for problems to seep in. That as things come up, we really need to seek evidence.

[00:41:44] We need to understand what's really happening and ask for specifics and listen to all involved before we make assumptions about whether it is toxic behavior and it's crippling the team and performance. Or not to really know if there are toxic leaders hidden in your organization. You gotta really talk to the people deeper down.

[00:42:05] If you're only talking to your direct reports, you're going to hear what they want you to hear. It requires doing things like skip level meetings. Which means going, uh, below your reporting, direct reporting chain, you know, spending time with mentees and people as you travel to really try to understand what's really going on by what is said and not said.

[00:42:25] And what are the telltale signs that someone might be toxic, for example, like them not allowing their direct reports to meet with you without them. I think toxicity has caused one of the problems that we see, which is too many meetings and too many people in meetings because there's not trust. And I think the other part that was so important was having really clear standards, but not only standards, but how do you support, how do you teach people how to be a good leader and what you expect of them and give them coaching and support before you.

[00:42:56] Come down with the consequences on Let's talk people. What we love to do most is help you unpack your toughest people management challenges. So send them in. Send in the situations you're struggling with, questions that you have about leading your teams, and we will anonymize them. Give you answers and our advice on an upcoming episode.

[00:43:22] You can write an email or attach a little audio message with your scenario to abigail@arosegroup.com. That's Abigail. A-B-I-G-A-I-L. AROSE Group A-R-O-S-E-G-R-O-U-P.com. Thanks for joining today's episode of Let's Talk, People. For More info and insights, visit arosegroup.com and find me Emily Frieze-Kemeny on LinkedIn and Instagram.

[00:43:53] If you're enjoying the show, please follow share on social, and leave a rating or review in your podcast app. It helps other listeners to discover us. Well, that's a wrap, friends. Until next time when we come together to talk people.