Ø Your motivation, creativity, and burnout

When you were hired in this company or organization, you were full of dreams. You were enthusiastic about your work. You arrived on time, sometimes skipped part of your break, or stayed late after hours to reach your goals, even going the extra mile as those who excel at their tasks often do.

You greatly admired your boss or your immediate supervisor. You felt at home, and there was an atmosphere conducive to productivity and efficiency.

However, after repeatedly receiving discouraging remarks despite your efforts, sometimes exceeding those of others, you were criticized for a mistake in front of all your colleagues. Your opinions or suggestions were dismissed without anyone taking the time to analyze or even consider your ideas.

The boss constantly puts you down. He seems uncomfortable with the fact that you are appreciated by his superiors for your brilliant presentations. His attempts to undermine your work tarnish the respect and consideration you once received from your colleagues.

In such an environment with such a toxic boss, you either do more or less. Naturally, you lean towards the second option. Little by little, you lose motivation and no longer feel the drive to go to work. On Mondays, you eagerly await Friday.

You no longer take initiatives, and you only do the bare minimum. You stop learning and endure the circumstances, avoiding making waves. You feel disgusted at the idea of going to work, and sometimes you question what’s wrong with you. You blame yourself and replay in your mind when exactly this relationship began to deteriorate, as you were once the boss’s favorite.

Alternatively, you decide to do even more. You work yourself to exhaustion, lose sleep, become increasingly irritable with colleagues, and approach burnout. You are called before the disciplinary board more frequently; in fact, you were suspended for the first time.

You have become a shadow of yourself. You forget your ambitions, you are no longer diligent at work, and during board meetings, senior managers no longer recognize the promising individual they once admired. A toxic relationship with your boss or a colleague can negatively impact you without you even realizing it, unless you take a moment to reassess yourself.

You are overwhelmed by hatred, resentment, and frustration, especially when you cannot afford to leave your job at the moment due to commitments like bank loans. You feel consumed and adrift on almost every level.

Ø Your Integrity and Loyalty

Although integrity is a decision and a way of life, this rare quality can be severely tested in a toxic work environment. Whether personally, professionally, or in business, success is difficult when one is disloyal.

However, when one is regularly subjected to injustice, deprived of flexibility or freedom, values and qualities may erode. Sometimes, excellent and talented employees don’t leave because they aren’t fairly compensated. As YouTuber Johan once said, “Good employees leave when the managers are bad.”

As a manager of over two hundred employees, with a supervisory team of ten collaborators, I can attest that a positive work environment depends heavily on the manager. The team’s management reflects the personality of the person at its head. If the manager exhibits toxic traits, the relationships with their team will be profoundly and negatively impacted.

During the early years of my career, I went through personal struggles. I regularly took out my frustration and anger on my team; when work wasn’t done well, I developed the bad habit of doing it for them. My constant shouting and anger drained the employees and amused me even less. The atmosphere was perpetually tense.

In such an environment, the employees’ abilities, initiative, and skills cannot thrive. Errors, from minor negligence to serious mistakes punishable by dismissal, became more frequent.

I constantly suffered from migraines, was nervous, and rarely smiled. Over time, and thanks to my mentor’s feedback, I decided to reassess myself and work on becoming a better person and, consequently, a better manager.

This anecdote is not necessarily an example of a toxic relationship as detailed in the previous chapters. The idea is to raise awareness of how toxic relationships can even affect the professional sphere. I had to undertake deep self-work to heal from wounds I initially denied and unlearn toxic habits to adopt the techniques of a happy manager. This transformation positively impacted the entire team.

No one is perfect; we all make mistakes. What matters most is recognizing them and committing to improvement.

When a manager is consistently tyrannical, aggressive, narcissistic, unjust, and competitive with their employees, there often lies a toxic personality, sometimes without their awareness. In the next chapter, we will explore how to protect ourselves or escape toxic relationships depending on the context.

This text is an excerpt from the book “These Relationships That Birth or Abort Our Destiny“ written by Suzanne KWEDI and Jennifer SYLAIRE.

We invite you to read the next article: “STOP BEING TOO KIND AND NAIVE”.

Toxic Relationships.