The name of this blog comes from our mission at INFLUENCE: “To empower people with clarity and confidence.”
Our objective is to provide brief but meaningful topics (under 500 words) that inspire, educate and empower leaders through resources both inside and outside of INFLUENCE. This week’s edition is provided by David Salmons.
To understand what a toxic culture is, MIT Sloan recently researched the language used in 1.3 million Glassdoor reviews in dozens of US industries. They identified what’s come to be known as the “Toxic Five,” a list of cultural attributes that have by far the largest negative impact on employees who negatively rate their companies on Glassdoor.
Perhaps more importantly, these attributes are at the top of the list of contributors to employee resignations. And to emphasize that point, according to MIT Sloan, during the first 6 months of the Great Resignation, these attributes were 10 times more likely to predict employee turnover than compensation.
In addition, not only do these attributes drive attrition, but they also make it harder to refill positions as over 75% of job seekers make culture inquiries when exploring potential employers.
Understanding what these attributes are then is the first step to either addressing them or avoiding them altogether for better engagement and retention. The attributes are:
- Disrespectful managers/co-workers
- Non-inclusive environments
- Unethical activity
- Cutthroat behavior
- Abusive experiences
Being limited by space, we’ll focus today on just one of these attributes: respect. According to a MIT Sloan article about why leaders need to worry about toxic cultures, the authors state that “…respect — or the lack thereof — was the single strongest predictor of how employees as a whole rated the corporate culture.”
Let’s transition immediately to applicable information. What does respect look like? Or more importantly, what can we do as organizational leaders to build a culture of respect? Jennifer Herrity, Talent Services Manager and Career Coach at Indeed, offers the following summary insights about practical respect from her experience over the years.
- First, she says, listen carefully, because people need to be heard. When people are shut out, they shut down. Connection, on the other hand, creates trust and energy.
- Second, look for nonverbal communication. It shows respect to see and acknowledge the experience of individuals beyond their functional engagement. Mental exhaustion, for example, may only be apparent with observation, a skill which develops the insight and trust needed to address previously hidden challenges.
- Third, recognize others’ strengths and accomplishments. Optimism and a sense of capacity grow with positive feedback. The converse is just as true, and a complete absence of feedback can be worse than negative feedback.
- Fourth, recognize the value and workloads of others. For example, treat others’ time as valuable, meaning if you schedule a meeting, try not to reschedule it repeatedly, show up late, or dismiss it and your team’s preparations at the last minute.
- Fifth, delegate meaningful work. Give others work that shows trust for their own goals and initiative, then avoid indulging the disrespect of micro-management.
- Sixth, practice common courtesy. Just be polite. Don’t be abrupt. Say please and thank you. Apologize when you make a mistake, particularly when your mistake impacts others.
- And last, consider how you come across in general. As Jennifer notes, this has to do with emotional intelligence, which includes recognizing others’ emotions and how we impact them.
In conclusion, most of these insights not surprisingly involve looking outside of ourselves with a sense of concern for others; and as Jennifer points out, small changes can have big impacts.