This is a good question. I think I was labeled the toxic worker in my previous job. I was a team lead and kept bring up concerns to my manager:

* 'this deadline is unrealistic'

* 'we can't continue at this pace, we have to have time to address some serious technical debt'

* 'I heard marketing saying that we can do X, but it isn't true and to add feature X would destroy our timeline'

* 'Adding more contractors isn't going to speed this up or improve the quality, we need time not warm bodies'

Of course none of those things were what my manger wanted to hear. When things inevitably went south it all came down on me and I was managed out of the company. I'm much happier now, as I see that the job was what was toxic. My manager wouldn't listen to me and I wouldn't drink the kool-aid that all was well. In fact, I saw it as my responsibility to share these concerns and to not just go with the flow. Now that I've had time to look back on it, I just think that is his management style: grind people to the bone for all that they are worth, then throw them out and repeat to the next poor sap.

Anyways, the article is about toxic workers - but if the managers are the ones deciding what is considered 'productive' and who is 'toxic' then that isn't a very complete view of the actual environment.

Ironically, not drinking the kool-aid makes you toxic.

And managers are technically workers too. There's no reason to put them in an ivory tower and assume they can't hate their job, hate people they work with or want to exact revenge for some wrong done against them.

The truth is somewhat more nuanced IMO, and it’s mentioned somewhere here — behavior is contagious. Keeping upbeat and positive to your coworkers will make them upbeat and positive even if they’re not naturally. Positivity like negativity is contagious, but the latter is the steady state for many while the former requires continuous effort. The issue here is the won’t/can’t/stop/oh god in heaven. Showing up at your managers desk ready to listen and propose solutions and iterate is much more positively viewed. I’m confident the manager sees the issues for themselves, what they need are solutions.

Check out the difference a little wordsmithing makes:

* 'this deadline is unrealistic' — “id love to be able to get all this done for you, and with 8 weeks left, I’m only going to be able to get through half of this; let’s sit down and figure out what we can deprioritize without compromising the core of our next release”

* 'we can't continue at this pace, we have to have time to address some serious technical debt' — “I’ve noticed im having trouble moving quickly in the codebase with the level of testing we have right now, I’d love to lead an effort to improve testing and testability. Let’s resdefine ‘performance’ to include velocity, and with this new metric I’m sure we can find some time! Happy to do the leg work here.”

* 'I heard marketing saying that we can do X, but it isn't true and to add feature X would destroy our timeline' - same as 1: “I’d love to be able to get X out for you in the next release, and to do so requires we cut a few weeks scope elsewhere in the product — let’s sit down and see what we can deprioritize without compromising quality!”

* 'Adding more contractors isn't going to speed this up or improve the quality, we need time not warm bodies' — what will? “Let’s see if we can save the company some money by finding a way to work more efficiently! I’ve noticed x and y, and I’d love to take the lead on it. Let’s define some metrics to show this is as good as or better than bringing in some more contractors! The finance team is going to love our proposal.”

Seems like the manager was the toxic employee here.

Certainly from my point of view, but that's the point of my comment, and the parent comment. Who gets to label the toxic people and the criteria that must be met for someone to get that label is a very important aspect that the article does not address. I'm not sure if the study its reporting on goes into that detail or not. Since they are specifically using the term 'toxic worker' and not employee, I'm left believing its purely from the viewpoints of the managers

Indeed. Reading TFA, I couldn't help thinking that managers who think this way are in fact the toxic ones. And so are slackers and the clueless, who can't hear constructive criticism straight, without getting their feelings hurt, and gossiping to management.

But then, maybe it's just that I'm prototypically toxic. And why I've always been happier as an independent consultant. Because I've tended to have slack to declare bullshit.

> I think I was labeled the toxic worker in my previous job. I was a team lead and kept bring up concerns to my manager

If someone was using the term "toxic" simply because of those behaviors, I'd say they were just using the wrong word.

Based only on what you wrote, another possibility seems to be that some aspect of how you communicated those concerns, or some other aspect of your behavior entirely, is what caused people to consider you "toxic". It would be interesting to hear your former manager's view of things.

In my own experience, I've had plenty of cases where my own view of my conduct was very different from how my coworkers viewed me. The cumulative impact of miscommunication and my occasional lack of self-awareness has caused me some serious grief.

That's why sometimes you just need to go around your manager's head and talk to people up the chain.

If they're all doofuses, it's time to leave!

But, if they're reasonable people, things will change for the better.

You're not toxic, your manager is.

Absolutely, there's a sort of double-speak going on here. If we define toxic as they did "harmful to the org" then HR, or even the CEO can be toxic (i.e. not good for the company). Heck, by this definition, even unions might be "toxic."

But in practice, 9/10 times when somebody says "toxic" they really mean rebellious (i.e. disagreeing with management decisions, calling out dishonest messaging, asking for transparency over management mistakes, sharing frustrations).

The article uses a loaded term to create a false-equivalence between "harmful to company" and "rebellious."

Couldn't disagree more w/ the 9/10 part. That's the sort of thinking self-identified "rebellious workers" who are worried about others (mgmt) perceiving themselves as.

"toxic worker" is a pretty textbook definition now: -horrible team player -plays for the spotlight, claims credit in the spotlight, does little work privately -if in mgmt, verbally/mentally terrorizes subordinates -etc etc

Yeah, too bad in many cases in companies where people play politics, the term toxic will be used as it suits best the person in power and their personal agenda, regardless of the textbook definition.

People took the notion of a fluid language and took it too far, by letting words mean whatever they think they mean and refusing to get corrected and/or abide by a standard definition.

Well yes, those instances would be companies that aren't on the train quite yet of understanding what a toxic worker actually is.

Which is the whole point of these sorts of studies: education

In areas where "toxic working" is ID'd as the risk it really is (i.e. this study is old, old news), it's never a term thrown around as a political term like you're concerned about. It's a specifically cancerous, horrible way of working that's seriously easy to identify. It's like trying to play politics with the term "water leaking" to describe anything other than water leaking.

Honestly, your 9/10 bit makes you sound like a manager who has been called out for making poor decisions. That isn't what I'd consider a toxic employee AT ALL. If you're making stupid decisions, you should be called out on it. Going by your definition, the manager would be considered toxic to the company as well.

Example: a person is being singled out by manager and assigned the junk work and not supported. Other employees start using the black sheep as a scapegoat and “othering” them. Scapegoat is unskilled at interpersonal conflict, has few personal boundaries. They start drinking or otherwise coping, because overall they like their job. After 2 years they’re laid off and nobody reaches out to them or responds. Is the laid off employee toxic? Perhaps. Were there ignored warning signs? Is that toxic?

Lots of nuance in judgement. Most people feel toxicity, but there are strong incentives to maintain situational homeostasis and capitalize on others’ blind spots.

Personally I’ve dumped a lot of that programming and am looking for non-judgemental and discerning workplaces, like I remember from early in my career. Hopefully not a pipe dream.

In my last company the toxic guy was the one who was extremely loud and obvious, always burning the midnight oil, running around like he was on fire. i.e. squeaky wheel.

In reality he was causing 10x more problems than he fixed, and for multiple years in a row his personal overtime spending was significant in a company of 500 employees.

"toxic worker" is a pretty textbook definition now:

-horrible team player

-Unfortunately hugely effective at getting results

-plays for the spotlight, claims credit in the spotlight, does little work privately

-if in mgmt, verbally/mentally terrorizes subordinates -etc etc

It's just a truly poisonous person, who tends to be extremely performant so they can stick around in orgs, whose lack of interpersonal skills in the above realms more or less destroys teams in the long run.

Depending on circumstances this sounds like the description of someone who moves up the ladder. It seems there is a very fine line between this description of “toxic” and “achiever”.

False, there is a very distinct line b/t descriptions of "toxic worker" and "achiever," assuming "achiever" is something to be emulated, is positive, and is good for the company.

That's why literature on toxic workplaces tends to not define toxic workers as "achievers" but as "high performers."

Frankly, that confusion is why this study exists. Orgs have to learn to figure out what who is "achieving," and who is "toxic working and getting results." It's a really common confusion point, but is only solved by education and good leadership.

Put another way, it's 10000% possibly to be a high achiever, and do none of that type of behavior.

Isn't that the point of the study? The system is broken if individually productive but net counterproductive people are labeled "achievers" and promoted.

I guess I am looking at it from the employee perspective. If you want to advance it’s probably better to risk being called toxic instead of being a good team player who never gets anywhere.

That takes some faith that being an unselfish team player will in fact get you somewhere.

From a mgmt perspective, assuming a good manager, it does.

If your team/org doesn't approach it that way, the solution is find a high performing team that does approach it that way, not become toxic yourself. 10/10 high performance, long term successful teams approach things this way (source: this study, and people who have experienced this approach luckily).

"That takes some faith that being an unselfish team player will in fact get you somewhere."

From my experience in most cases it's not getting you anywhere. You will just be taken as granted.

There are many unethical things you might be prepared to do if your goal is "getting somewhere". Where do you draw the line? Or is it a case of not hating the player but hating the game?

It’s certainly about hating the game it also accepting that if you want to make some money you probably have to play it.

Asking that question might itself be "toxic". If "the group" arrives at that decision, consensus is better than correctness etc

When you are blaimed individually for the failure later on, is that also "the group" consensus?

In the long run always individuals are blamed and not groups..

> It's more like the article defines a toxic worker by the result, not the symptom.

What does this mean? Symptom and result are the same thing.

Perhaps "underlying" cause was meant / as a symptom of something else. Unrealistic demands with high pressure for results may lead to cultures of misconduct for instance. If the policies lead to the behaviors getting rid of the result won't fix it.