Surviving the toxic workplace (2)

“Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it proceed the issues of life”- Proverbs 4:23

When you find yourself in a hole, wisdom demands that you stop digging. Sometimes, you cannot help finding yourself in a toxic work environment. The toxicity could be created by one or more superiors or leaders who cannot manage diversity well. It could also come from subordinates. Sometimes, it could be systemic, a product of leadership lapses. But whatever causes the toxicity, when you find yourself in a toxic work environment, you don’t have to join the fray. You don’t have to become a pig to survive a pigsty. Toxicity can be abrupt and intense. For instance, when you eat contaminated food, the effect is almost immediately obvious and can be fatal if care is not soon taken. In most cases, however, it is a gradual buildup that appears tolerable until the effects start showing and your immunity is suppressed or overcome.

How do you navigate a toxic workplace and maintain your sanity when everyone else seems to be losing theirs? How do you prevent yourself from manifesting that same environment that you passionately disdain? Your first step is to recognize your situation. Denying the presence of toxins doesn’t make them go away. The options available to you are to load up on emotional antioxidants or to regularly pursue a programme of intentional detoxification, or both! The second step is to identify the specific toxins and the triggers. In addition, identify the emotions and responses these toxins or their sources trigger in you. Now you are ready for a D.E.T.O.X.

The first part of your detoxification process is to DETACH yourself from the triggers and the negative emotions they potentially provoke. When a superior yells at you for no reason or tries to frustrate you, simply tell yourself, “I definitely don’t want to be like him. I wonder what is eating him up.” Sympathize with, but don’t become him. Highly irritable people usually struggle with a self-esteem problem that is masked by social status or position. Consequently, they vent their anger and frustration on others who they believe must be forced to “respect” them! Get yourself deliberately trained in Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence. These two are the keys to relationship management at work or off work. Greet a frown with a smile. Avoid the temptation of raising your voice at the person who is yelling at you. Nobody wins a shouting match! Cultivate a friendship with saying very little. Nobody quotes silence. Look beyond the rant and see the substance of what is being expressed. Focus on the bigger picture. Don’t take every outburst of a toxic person personally. Your mental health is far too important than to allow anyone make you take solace in antidepressants at the end of every day at work. Always remind yourself that you must never do what is being done to you to your subordinates or to anyone. You don’t become a snake simply because you were bitten by one. If you start spewing venom because a snake bit you, it is simply because the nature of a serpent was always in you, waiting for a stimulus to manifest.

Have an ESCAPE plan. Unless you are a part-owner of the company, a toxic workplace has no loyalty to its staff. Ouch! The leaders see the employees as tools rather than allies or stakeholders. Loyalty is a two-way street. A toxic employer/boss will throw you under the bus or sacrifice you at the altar of convenience if and when the need arises. And they are sometimes very ruthless about it! If you are close enough to leadership in the establishment or are in a position where your input can make a difference, then do your best. However, if you end each working day with a migraine or wake up every morning dreading to get up from bed to prepare to head for work, you need to have an exit strategy. A plan B is a recommended safety net in any toxic environment.

TRANSCEND expectations. Your number one defence in any toxic work environment is exemplary performance. Know your KRAs (Key Result Areas) and master the deliverables. Set goals around the corporate vision and have a personal roadmap for achieving the goals. Set higher standards of performance for yourself than the establishment or the boss sets for you. As much as possible, don’t fuel the fire of an irritable person’s emotional inferno. If they must have an emotional rollercoaster, let the joke turn out to be on them, not you!

Toxic workplaces hardly prioritize learning and development. So, invest in your personal and professional development and be the number one auditor of your output. While others advance in internal bickering, politicking and the chameleon syndrome – the natural spinoffs of, and survival strategy of most people in toxic work environments – spend time to grow your mind and make yourself worthy of your next career opportunity. Beat deadlines. Become an outlier. Get attention by the quality of your performance, not the strength of your argument.

Excellence is sustained by the quality of thought that produces it. Outliers are products of OUTTHINKING. If you think like the environment that you consider toxic, you can only manifest what that environment manifests. Excellence is driven by superior thought that refuses to be boxed into a status quo.

Let me warn here that one of the symptoms of toxicity in the workplace is a patent disdain for superior thinking. This disdain is manifested especially by petty-minded superiors who believe that nobody under them should be seen to be smarter than them in any shape or form. Sustained in position by mediocrity, they are threatened by any ray of excellence or superior thinking and will do anything to frustrate anyone who demonstrates it. However, goldfish have no hiding place. You can’t hide sunshine. Even when covered by clouds, it is a matter of time before the rays shine through. Never allow anyone to make you suspend your brain simply because they don’t use theirs.

Finally, resist XENOTROPISM. A virus is described as being xenotropic when it grows inside an organism that is different from its usual or normal host. Never let another person transfer their dysfunction to you simply because you are in proximate environments. Guard your heart and resist the pressure to become like your aggressor. If you let down your guard and let them infect you with a virus that is alien to you but finds natural habitat in them, the effect is likely to be deadlier and more evident because that is not who you usually are! Rabies is a disease of mammals but is usually resident in animals. Many animals can live with it as carriers for years. But when a carrier animal bites a man, except there is urgent medical attention, it is only a matter of days before it manifests and kills its new host!

You cannot stop a bird from flying over or dropping dung on your head. But you must never allow it to build its nest on your head!

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!

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