Should We Be Troubled By How Much Interest There Is In Avoiding And Combating “Toxic” Work?

It might be semantic creep, but it’s intriguing.

I would generally classify MIT Sloan Management Review as a “reputable publication.” Here is their list of their most popular 2022 articles. Before you even get to №5, you have two references to the word “toxic,” with the most-popular article of the year being about how a toxic culture is driving “The Great Resignation” (sure, sure) and the fourth-most popular article of the year is about fixing toxic cultures. Between 1 and 4, you have (2), which is about meeting-free days — and I’d argue meetings are an example of managerial toxicity, so maybe that applies as well — and (3) is about how the “superpower” of “top performers” is happiness. That’s a whole other thing. I’ve written a bit about that before, but I’ll spare you links.

Toxic work cultures truly rot from the head

It is interesting how we have this semantic focus on “toxic” and “toxicity” in the last few years, usually around “toxic workplaces” and “toxic masculinity,” but also “toxic positivity,” which I…