93 Toxic Culture Why Work Feels Draining — and How to Stay Grounded and Powerful

Welcome to episode 93 on the Great Leader Great Mom podcast, where we trade in mom guilt and burnout for courage, calm, and a whole lot more joy. I'm your host, Liz Jolly, engineer-turned life coach, mom of three, and founder of the School of courage. Here we talk about leading at work and at home. Without losing your sanity, your sense of humor, or yourself. If you're ready to drop the guilt and grow your courage, you're in the right place. Today's episode is all about when work feels toxic and how to find yourself in the middle of the mess. This is a topic that comes up over and over again in my coaching So I know many of you are familiar with this. It feels like more and more our corporations are not nurturing the culture that we hoped they would. And so we end up in what we would call a toxic culture. What this feels like is there's politics going on behind closed doors, there's gossip that spreads everywhere and creates a lot of drama. There's the favorite people who get protected no matter what they do. There's your bonus or your performance rating that's being decided in rooms you're not in, and maybe your boss isn't even in either to support you You're working hard, you care, you're trying to do the right thing, and yet you leave work feeling exhausted, angry, tense. And invisible. Many of you I know are just about fed up. If this is you, this episode is made just for you We're not gonna false positivity our way into pretending everything is fine, and on the other end, I don't want you to leave your job yet These days, many cultures really are unhealthy, but we today are going to talk about how to maintain your sanity and confidence even when the world is chaotic and messy around you. When people tell me their workplace is toxic, they're usually describing some kind of mix of these things. First, back channeling politics like decisions about promotions or ratings or roles being made in secret based on who's connected to whom, not even on the quality of work or the actual performance. There's also the gossip and the triangulation where people are venting about each other instead of talking to each other. And leaders complain about other team members behind their backs. You hear three different versions of the same story, and it's awful. There's also the moving goalpost where expectations are changing constantly, priorities are flipping week to week, and then you're being told you didn't deliver on a target that no one actually clarified It feels like a wayward ship. There's also the credit stealing and the blame shifting where someone else is presenting your work as theirs in the meeting or leaders are throwing individuals under the bus when things go wrong. There's silent treatment or exclusion when you're being left out of key meetings, emails, group chats, and then judged for not being aligned or engaged. There's the ratings and the bonuses that feel a hundred percent political, like you get a lower rating than your performance deserves. Or when someone who plays the game better or does the politics seems to glide right through and get the promotions or the plus ratings. There's also the gaslighting that shows up when you're being told you're too sensitive, too emotional, too negative when you bring up a legitimate issue. Maybe you're even punished for saying anything at all. On top of that You're potentially a mom or a caregiver, and there's a whole nother extra layer. You're juggling the school emails, the kid illnesses, the practices, the appointments, and then trying to prove at work That you're not less committed just because you also have a family. And in this kind of environment, of course, our nervous system, our brain, is totally fried. We go home exhausted, stressed out And we feel resentful and of course we fantasize about quitting via email on a beach in our lounge chair with our Mai Tai in hand. I hear you. You're not alone. This really is common now across all kinds of corporations. So how do we find our way to stand strong and be our best self in a toxic culture. The first step is you want to create a space between the chaos and you. So what do I mean by that? We need to shift into observer mode and this is being an observer of ourself Where we are separating out what is a fact from what is a dramatic story we've created in our minds. And I say dramatic story because I know many of you would be able to find thousands of people That would agree that yes, you are in a toxic culture, you should leave, this is terrible. But when you walk around and you tell everybody about how bad your work environment is This just perpetuates this negative story and it doesn't serve you. I promise. It just brings you more into this negative state and it wastes a ton of your energy. This is probably why you feel so exhausted at the end of the day. So here's how we create this space and become an observer of ourselves. First we need to identify what is the actual circumstance like What are the words people said? I like to simplify it down to man said words or woman said words. It could be what is the rating you got? What is your bonus factually? Who got promoted and who did not. Things like that. Separate them out that every single person would agree on either side. And then we need to understand the story our brain is making up about those circumstances. For example. If our circumstances that my rating this year was an X instead of a Y, and the story I tell about that to myself is I'm not valued. I'll never move up. I'm stuck. That's the story, not the circumstance. Another example would be where your boss didn't invite you to a meeting. That is a pure circumstance. It's neutral. The story you might make up about that is I'm irrelevant. Nobody cares about me. I'm invisible here. I should just leave. Those things really are the thoughts, the story you created in your brain, and they don't serve you One last example. Say your coworker spoke over you in a meeting. That is a neutral circumstance. You might make that mean that no one respects you, that they think you're stupid, that you just don't belong here or you don't fit in. That story is what's pulling you down. So when you sit down and you write out what is the true circumstance of what I think is a problem and what is the story I make up about it. It truly may feel frustrating and unfair, and you might crave to be validated for being in such a terrible environment. I would never ask you to pretend that people aren't being unfair or they aren't frustrating But notice when you feel pain in your body, you feel that negative emotion, how it shows up within you. You're the one that gets The hair on the back of your neck standing up. You're the one that feels the anger. You're the one whose chest gets tight, whose fists tighten up, who feels the shame. And this is all because of the story you're making their actions or their words mean about you. That's when we hand over all our power to someone else. When we live inside that story long enough Everything starts to look like proof. Every email confirms, yep, see, they don't care. This is what our brain does. We're always looking for evidence as to what we believe, what story we're telling. You might think every decision is confirming, yep, I'm powerless here. And every slight confirms, yeah, this place is toxic and I'm trapped. This is the chronic negative story that really is keeping you stuck. So here's a paper exercise, something you can do today to help you get a little bit of relief amongst that toxic culture. Grab a sheet of paper and pen and I want you to write at the top. What feels toxic at work right now? And just dump Every single thought you have in your brain out on paper. Don't edit, don't try to be reasonable. Just write what your brain is actually thinking. And then for each line or bullet, walk through these three steps. Name the neutral fact. Go back with a highlighter and only highlight what actually is the fact. If a camera had been in the room, what would it have recorded? My boss gave me a meets expectation rating I was not invited to the strategy meeting. My coworker rolled her eyes and interrupted me. Write down then what you're making that fact mean about you. This is your story. This is the part that's creating the suffering and the drama for you. It could be something like, I'm not a top performer, or they just don't trust me. I'm not respected. I'm replaceable or I'm not valued. And then I want you to ask yourself, is this absolutely true? What if there are other explanations What if their reaction or their words were really all about them? What if someone could be 100% wrong about you and that was okay? Maybe it's more about their limitations than your value. Maybe they're feeling the pressure or the hustle or the shame themselves and they don't know what to do with it. You're not doing this to let anybody off the hook for bad behavior. You're doing it to stop handing them your identity and your peace and your joy in your day at work. Because when we stay in constant judgment And we think they shouldn't be like this. This is all wrong. Don't they know they're terrible people? We end up carrying all that negativity in our bodies and in our minds. There's no upside for you rehearsing this 24-7. There's no upside to staying tense and bitter and exhausted all day long, even way after the meeting ends. Now I'm gonna say something that might feel a little provocative What if this season at work is not proof that you're doomed or you should quit your job, but it's your training ground? It's your current curriculum. It's your Tough situation class 401. And it's not because this behavior is okay. It's not because you should stay in this role and be tortured forever. But it's because this is where you can learn who you are. You can learn to separate what's happening around you from the story you make it mean so that you can show up and be grounded and confident in your best self. What if the environment and all those people are there to teach you something? We need to anchor our worth on who we are, not some rating system or some bonus or somebody telling us how great of a job we're doing We need to get more to the place of someone being a hundred percent wrong about us and still know who we are and the value we bring to the table. We want to show up as grounded in the room instead of matching the drama or rising to the emotional temperature of a room. We like to imagine that if we were just in the right company with the right boss, we'd finally feel valued and secure. And we just are in the wrong environment. to get away. But here's the truth. Even in healthy cultures, people are human. They're inconsistent. They have emotions and they feel shame and fear and all the crazy things just like you. And they miss things and they mess up. If your sense of value is entirely outsourced to how fair and functional your culture is, you're going to always be on shaky ground. And this doesn't mean you tolerate abuse. It means that before you decide what to do next, you need to claim back the part of you that belongs to you. You get to decide what you make it mean about you when things happen around you, no matter how crazy it gets. You can decide how you show up. How are you going to write the story of your week, of your day, even in the drama around you? Because you truly get to decide you and your behavior And the impact you're gonna make, despite all of them. Whenever we talk about toxic culture, there's a big question underneath it all. Should I leave now or later? Or maybe you beat yourself up and say, I should have left a couple months ago. Sometimes the answer is yes. You maybe should go to a different environment. And if your mental or physical health is being shredded, if you're totally soul-crushed, if there's harassment or clear abuse, leaving really can be the healthiest, bravest choice. But sometimes the answer is not just yet. I want to create an exit plan, but I also want to work on maintaining my own emotional power, my own confidence, my own groundedness No matter what is happening around you, we want to create that space between the words they say, the behavior they take, and what we make it mean. That's the power of separating out the facts from your story, the circumstances from your thoughts. Because so often we can leave and think that the grass is greener on the other side, but you end up around a difficult person all over again or a culture that isn't Living up to your high expectation and we drag the same negative stories with us. Trust me, it happens to all of us I want you to move from feeling like you're powerless or that everyone around you is terrible or even the feeling of being stuck. And I want to see you move towards I can see what's happening around me. I can watch this happen and play out like I'm watching a telenovela. I'm not gaslighting myself, and I'm going to choose on purpose who I want to be, how I show up, and what I want to create in my life next, even in this toxic culture. So if you're listening right now from a car in the parking garage or the school pickup line Feeling that heavy toxic culture knot in your stomach, here's what I want you to remember. You're really not crazy for feeling all of this You're not alone. There really are problems in workplaces and lack of developing culture that is sustainable, that matters, that can lift you up. And yet Your power has not disappeared. You can find your way back to confidence and calm and groundedness. Start with putting all your thoughts on paper. Separate out what happened from what you're making it mean. Question those stories and drop the ones that keep you feeling stuck and small, powerless, or invisible. Decide on purpose how you want to show up While you're here in this environment, who do you want to be? How do you want to write this story? Do you want to write it as a victim or as the hero that overcame and learned and found their superpower in this toxic culture. So whether you stay or leave or something in between, you don't have to let this toxic culture define who you are. If this is resonating with you, you should come join the School of Courage. This is where we tackle difficult topics like this. We have weekly teaching calls, monthly workbooks And the opportunity to get coaching from me. So if you're deep in a toxic culture, take a deep breath. You are not your rating. You're not your boss's opinion. You know who you are. Go to lizjolly. com forward slash membership if you're interested in learning more about joining the School of Courage. And this month I'm doing a toxic culture workshop. So if your work has been draining your energy and following you home and you're exhausted. Sign up for my Toxic Culture workshop and learn how to stay grounded and clear before you decide what to do next. The link is in the show notes or go to lizjolly. com Forward slash toxic. But that'll see you next time, everybody. Take her