How would you know if others experience your leadership as toxic?

I have yet to meet anyone who wants to be a toxic leader, but we sure do have a whole lot of them in libraries and related fields. It's easy to point out the extreme cases, but you don't have to shout at people and call them names to damage psychological safety or contribute to a culture that burns people out.

This issue has come up for me in a couple of different contexts lately.

One was another case of LinkedIn drama 😂 Someone posted about how refreshing it is to work in a healthy workplace after years of reporting to a toxic leader... But I know who they're talking about as toxic, and was genuinely surprised. I don't know that person super well, but had gotten the impression that they care about being a good leader and would not want others to experience their leadership as toxic. Unfortunately, caring about being a good leader doesn't always translate into actions that build healthy workplaces.

This issue has also been front and center with a coaching client who sought me out after an incident that included some version of complaint that they are a toxic leader. As usual, I'm leaving out anything identifiable here, which is why this wording is so vague! There are a lot of common factors at play in this situation, including trauma that this team experienced long before this leader ever set foot in this library. In this coaching relationship, I'm getting to know this leader on a much deeper level than tends to happen with colleagues that I catch up with at conferences or work with on committees.

I know how much this person deeply values creating a collaborative, healthy workplace where team members feel trusted and have psychological safety. At the same time, they're also a whole person with feelings. As much as they deeply care about all of this, they've identified times when they've acted out of alignment with those values.

I'm assuming that you also care about building trust and psychological safety with your team. I'm also guessing that, because you're human, you've done things that were out of alignment with your values – whether that's because you started to feel defensive when that person brought that attitude yet again, or because you were feeling insecure about how you were being perceived, or because you tried to follow advice your supervisor or a mentor gave you for navigating a tricky situation even though it didn't feel quite right for you, or for any number of other reasons.

To complicate things even further, even when you're acting in alignment with your values, your actions don't always communicate those values clearly. This is that issue of intent versus impact, and there are many reasons people may receive your actions differently than intended.

So how do you know?

If you're fortunate enough to have someone on your team who's willing to take the risk of giving you constructive feedback, then maybe you can trust them to let you know. But we can't take that for granted.

If things reach a point that someone files a formal complaint, then you know there's something to work on. But I don't know anyone who wants things to get to that point!

How do you catch and address the early signs before things turn all the way toxic?

None of the questions below will tell you for absolutely certain whether or not someone experiences your leadership as toxic. Instead, they get at issues that tend to be at the root of the toxic behaviors I've observed in leaders.

Self-reflection only goes so far, and a well-done 360 review will give you a much better view of how your team members actually perceive your leadership. These are questions to return to between regular reviews, not a replacement for this type of review.

How often do you find yourself dispensing solutions to common problems?

We tend to love to give answers! It feels good to solve problems for people! And, frankly, just telling someone how you would do a thing is often quicker than helping them figure out what will work best for them – which matters when you've got way too much on your plate. And sometimes you do need to just give instructions when we're talking about a procedure that needs to done a certain way.

This question is for those situations in which there are many different paths to the same outcome – like planning a program or info lit lesson. Jumping to solve everything right away trains your team members to come to you for those solutions instead of figuring out how they want to solve that challenge themselves.

This can turn toxic in a couple of ways. On one hand, you may start to get frustrated that they keep coming to you to solve things that they're supposed to have ownership over, and that frustration can come through in your interactions. On another hand, they may start to believe that you want to be the one who solves everything – which can lead to fear of doing the “wrong” thing if they take initiative.

How often do you find yourself listening to respond, instead of listening to understand?

So much of the way we're socialized trains us to listen to respond. And when you're short on time, it feels important to sift through what's being said to find the issue that you actually need to deal with so you can move on to the next thing.

But it's really easy to miss important context or misunderstand the situation when you're focused on how you'll respond.

This turns toxic when the person you're talking to feels like they're not really being heard. Or worse, when they feel like you care more about defending your own position than in understanding their concerns.

How often do you act on assumptions about someone's behaviors?

Our brains are wired to identify patterns, which allow us to make assumptions that free up brain power for new issues. Making assumptions isn't always inherently bad. I assume that, if you don't call out, then you'll show up on time for your shift or meeting or whatever.

This can turn toxic when we make assumptions about why people are doing the things they're doing, and then act on those assumptions, instead of asking what's going on for them.

A huge part of Lead With Curiosity is learning to ask questions that will help you get a better understanding of what's actually going on, so that you can address the real issue.

For example, when you notice someone regularly getting things done at the very last minute, it's easy to assume that they're just a procrastinator who needs to get better at project management. My supervisor noted that in my very first full annual review as a new librarian, without ever asking what was going on for me. In reality, I kept getting stuck in decision paralysis while planning a big new event. No Gant chart is going to help with that. And when you're barely meeting every deadline because you're trying to keep up with way too much, no project management tool is going to fix an overloaded workload. That supervisor assumed I needed a project management course, when what I really needed was someone to coach me through some big decisions.

How much anxiety do you feel about the quality of work your team members are going to produce?

It's completely normal to want to do good work and to want your team to do work that reflects well on your unit. That can become problematic when this crosses over into anxiety, and when you act on that anxiety.

Expressing anxiety – even if it's below a clinical level – can become toxic when your reactions communicate a lack of trust in your team members.

Acting on that anxiety can become toxic when it leads you to do things like constantly checking people's work, triple checking that they really will arrive on time, and so on. This is the path to micromanagement.

How well do you set and maintain boundaries?

Librarians tend to identify as helpers. We see a need in our community, and if no one else is doing anything, we tend to want to find a way to fill that need. Or, we see an opportunity to build bridges that could benefit our library, and we feel obligated to grab it, because we're under attack from so many directions.

This turns toxic when it means adding and adding to workloads without ever taking anything off of people's plates.

This can also turn toxic when people get the (possibly unintended) message that they're not allowed to say no to anyone.

I talk a lot about my experiences with toxic leaders, but one of the positive things about my old library was that I never felt like I had to say yes to every single instruction request. I had the autonomy to say “no, I will not do a lesson in the first week of classes, and here's why”, or “no, I will not babysit your class while you're at a conference, and here's why”. Of course, those were openings to propose a better time for a lesson, not just a cold “no” (and I phrased my responses more diplomatically than I did here!), but I know a lot of instruction librarians who don't feel like they're allowed to do that.

When's the last time someone openly disagreed with you?

It's really easy to say that you welcome disagreement. But unless people actually speak up to disagree with you – about a policy, or pointing out a flaw in your planning, or whatever – then you don't know whether they actually believe you. Maybe you really have been hitting it out of the park with great ideas lately. Maybe you've been doing a great job of inviting them to share their ideas before you speak, so that they can feel safer speaking up without it feeling like a disagreement. Or maybe, no matter what you tell them, they don't actually feel as safe speaking up as you'd like them to.

How do you respond when someone does disagree with you?

This is where your actions speak much louder than words. If an outside observer watched a video of that interaction, would they think you were more interested in defending your position or understanding where the other person is coming from?

One of the subtle versions of this one turning toxic is when you treat every disagreement as a debate. You may find it intellectually stimulating, but they may experience it as you being defensive.

This also ties back into the earlier question about whether you listen to respond or listen to understand.

How do you deal with conflict?

This is another area where a lot of us start to feel anxiety, and respond by avoiding any conflict. We start to imagine all of the ways someone might react badly to even small constructive criticism. Before you know it, you can find yourself deciding that's such a small issue that it doesn't really need to be corrected. You can just work around it. You may be so focused on how that person will feed about any correction that you overlook the ways their behavior is affecting others.

And then things slowly get worse, turning that conversation into a bigger and bigger deal. Maybe some resentment starts building among the coworkers who are seeing this issue go unaddressed.

There are a lot of ways for this one to turn toxic.

If you haven't built skills to manage these difficult conversations, then you may wind up acting out of alignment with your values when things finally boil over and force you to deal with the issue.

How often do you find yourself reacting due to insecurities?

This is a big question that gets to the root of a lot of toxic behaviors – including some of those discussed above. To answer this, you need to take the time to identify what your most important values actually are – not what sounds good, but what actually matters. And then, you have to be really honest with yourself about why you're doing things.

For example, I had a coaching conversation with someone who values a collaborative approach, but things didn't always go as hoped. Sometimes, they involved others in truly collaborative decision making. Sometimes, they opened similar conversations, but were honestly looking for reassurance that they were on the right track. And those conversations that went off track were generally the ones where they were acting in alignment with their insecurities, instead of with their values.

So what do you do now?

If any of these questions struck a nerve, the first step is to start paying more attention. One way to do that is to use a reflection journal and create some standard prompts to respond to each day. Set aside 10-20 minutes each day for a week or two to respond to those prompts. And then, give yourself some time at the end of that period to look for patterns.

Some questions to consider adapting to use in your prompt:

• What happened?
• What factors made this harder / easier to deal with?
• How would you like to respond the next time you're in this situation?

As always, the next steps from here depend on what you uncover in this process.

Getting support

If you realize that you're struggling in any of these areas, 1:1 Confidential Coaching can provide invaluable support. We can work through the actual details of your individual context, so that you can become confident that your actions clearly communicate your values as a leader.

Schedule your no-obligation discovery call to find out whether we'd be a good match to work together!

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