Blog 3 When Your Workplace Turns Toxic. Understanding the Harm and Reclaiming Your Power

A workplace becomes toxic long before you realise you are drowning in it. Sometimes it is loud, public ridicule, exclusion, gossip, or overt hostility. Other times it is quiet, cold silences, withheld information, being ignored, or being shut out of decisions that affect your work. Whether subtle or blatant, a toxic workplace does not just happen, it is created, often from the top down, by leadership systems that enable or embody harmful behaviours.

If you are the person being singled out, whispered about, excluded, or shamed, it is important to pause and hear this clearly. Your distress is real, your reactions are human, and you did not cause the cruelty you are experiencing.

How Toxicity Is Created at the Top

Workplace toxicity often starts with leadership. When management is emotionally immature, overwhelmed, poorly trained, or invested in protecting their image rather than their staff, the culture becomes unsafe. Common managerial contributors include:

• Stonewalling is refusing to engage with your concerns, ignoring emails, avoiding meetings, or giving vague, circular answers that resolve nothing. Stonewalling is a form of power, it communicates, “You don’t matter enough for me to respond.”

• Passive-aggressive behaviours , backhanded compliments, subtle digs, delaying decisions to frustrate you, changing expectations without notice, or praising you publicly while criticising you privately. This creates confusion and instability, making you question your own perceptions.

• Selective enforcement of rules is one standard for some employees, a harsher standard for you.

• An “inner circle” culture , where a small group is protected, and anyone outside it becomes disposable or easily scapegoated.

• Tolerance of bullying is when leaders remain silent about gossip, exclusion, or mistreatment, they are not neutral, they are endorsing it.

  
  

Toxic workplaces thrive when leaders prioritise reputation, hierarchy, or control over compassion, fairness, and accountability. And once a system becomes toxic, it often emboldens others to behave in ways they would never dare in a healthy environment.

The Psychological Toll on You

When you are repeatedly targeted whether through direct hostility or the quieter violence of being ignore, the impact on your mental health can be profound. You may recognise:

• Burnout, fuelled by emotional exhaustion rather than workload.

• Compassion fatigue, especially if you work in a helping role but receive no care in return.

• Anxiety and hypervigilance, constantly anticipating the next slight, the next meeting where you’ll be undermined, or the next whispered conversation that falls silent when you walk by.

• Internalised shame, questioning what you did wrong, even when the answer is often “nothing.”

• Isolation, because being excluded repeatedly makes you doubt your worth and invisibility becomes easier than trying to be seen.

These reactions are survival responses. They do not mean you are weak, they mean you have been living under chronic threat.

Understanding the Behaviour of Colleagues and Bosses

Colleagues may join in the toxicity for many reasons: fear of becoming a target, desire to belong to the “in-group,” or misplaced loyalty to management. Their silence, their glances, their whispered conversations can feel like knives. And in some ways, they are. Social exclusion affects the same parts of the brain as physical pain.

Bosses who target you may behave differently in public than they do behind closed doors. They may shame you in meetings, withhold support, or present you as incompetent to justify their behaviour. They might even frame your attempts to address issues as the problem itself, an insidious form of gaslighting.

And stonewalling, one of the most destructive behaviours of all, leaves you suspended in uncertainty. You cannot resolve the issue because the person in power refuses to engage. This is not miscommunication, it is manipulation.

When You Feel Trapped

Feeling trapped in a toxic workplace is common. You may fear retaliation, worry about job security, or feel financially dependent on staying. You may tell yourself it will get better. But trapped does not mean powerless. You have rights & have options. You deserve safety.

Protecting Yourself. Practical and Psychological Strategies

1. Learn Your Organisation’s Policies

Familiarise yourself with.

• Anti-bullying and harassment policies

• Dignity-at-work policies

• Grievance procedures

  
  

  These documents give you language and structure. They also outline the behaviours you are protected from.

2. Document Everything

Record:

• Dates, times, and descriptions of incidents

• Who witnessed them

• How each incident affected you

  
  

  Patterns are powerful evidence. Keep your notes outside the workplace system.

3. Seek Support Internally

Options may include

• HR

• A union representative

• A designated dignity-at-work officer

• An employee assistance programme

  
  

  Even informal conversations can create a record.

4. Know Your Legal Rights

Employment law protects you from harassment, bullying, discrimination, and hostile work environments. Speaking with an employment-law advisor, union rep, or independent advocate can give you clarity and reassurance.

5. Build Emotional Boundaries

You cannot control their behaviour, but you can control your exposure.

• Limit unnecessary interactions with toxic individuals.

• Ground yourself before difficult conversations.

• Practise self-compassion; remind yourself that your worth is not defined by this environment.

6. Seek External Support

Therapy provides a space where your experience is validated and your strength is rebuilt. Speaking with someone who understands psychological harm can help you reclaim your voice.

You Are Not the Problem

Toxic workplaces often create the illusion that you are the issue. But cruelty, exclusion, stonewalling, and passive aggression reveal far more about the system than the individual being targeted. Healthy environments do not need someone to suffer in order for others to thrive.

If you are feeling small, invisible, or broken by the place you work, please hear this, you are not alone, and you are not powerless. You deserve dignity snd respect. And you deserve a workplace that sees your humanity rather than trying to diminish it.

You are worthy of safetyand no job has the right to take that from you.