Dear Madeleine,

I am a professional office manager. I happily managed a medical practice for many years until I was let go when it was acquired by a large national entity.

I recently went for an interview to manage a new practice after having several promising interviews. I arrived early for the interview and was sitting in the waiting room when I overheard one of the doctors speaking to a PA, a nurse, and the desk staff. He was just awful. He called people names and was overbearing and condescending.

It turned out that he is the managing partner, and my interview was with him. He had no idea I had been sitting and waiting for a while, and he could not have been more charming. I started to get the idea that he really wanted to just hire me on the spot because they keep losing their office managers.

They have offered me the job. The pay is competitive and the benefits are fine. I am just not sure I can deal with this person being my boss. And I don’t think it would be fun to manage a staff that is so browbeaten.

At my last office, the doctors were kind and treated the staff with respect and consideration. I didn’t even realize what a difference that makes until I got a shocking view of the exact opposite.

What do you think? Jobs that fit my skill set in my area aren’t that plentiful. Should I just bite the bullet? I have money saved, so I am not desperate for a job, but I also wonder if I am being too picky. Are my standards too high?

Thanks for any ideas you may have for me.

Too Picky?

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Dear Too Picky?

No. You aren’t too picky. You are right to carefully assess the quality of the work environment you are considering. There is so much research showing that incivility in the workplace affects the quality of life and even the health of workers. You can read an example of some here.

Here is the thing. You are basing your initial assessment on one experience. You don’t actually know if the doctor in question behaves that way all the time. Maybe he was having a terrible day. And what about all the other doctors?

You might think about getting in contact with some of the staff members and asking what it is like to work in the office. That will give you a lot more information. If your first impression is corroborated, that will tell you what you need to know. If you still aren’t sure, you might suggest a three-month trial period. If the practice lead and the other doctors are awful all the time, you can leave and tell them why. So it isn’t all or nothing. You might have an opportunity to influence and make the practice the kind of happy place you were accustomed to.

Your instincts are good, Too Picky. I just don’t know that you need to make a snap decision. Explore the opportunity a little more. Maybe it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

I hope you find the right place!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I read your last blog with interest. My boss and I have worked together for four years and, generally speaking, I have done well with her. She shows appreciation for my work and has been warm and supportive of my career aspirations.

However, there are moments when something she does or says puts me into a tailspin that takes me a long time to recover from. It often is an offhand comment. I have spent a fair amount of time talking colleagues off the ledge for the same thing.

We all put up with it because she is brilliant and we learn so much from her. She challenges us to do great work, which we are all proud of. But she is A LOT, and we never quite know what to expect from her.

We have nicknamed her “Toxy” and have made a game of finding examples of toxic leaders on IG and debating which kind she is. At times I have thought about seeking a job elsewhere, but I feel like I may be learning how to navigate her. Also, there are enough great things about the work and the company that make it worth staying.

I hope you can explain this phenomenon and advise me on what I might do to manage it even more effectively.

How Toxic Is Too Toxic?

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Dear How Toxic is Too Toxic?

First, thanks for making me laugh—your nickname for your boss is darkly funny. It’s also sad. I am sorry for you, your colleagues, and your boss.

I dedicated my first coaching company to helping creative geniuses, which included people with unusually high IQs and many others who were extraordinarily gifted in some way. One of the first things creative geniuses need to do is learn how the world looks to people who aren’t them. This can be an insurmountable challenge for some. When these people become leaders, they are often oblivious to the effect the combination of their personality, their high standards, and their increased power has over others. It can create a difficult environment.

Now let’s define toxic. When we talk about toxic leaders, we usually mean people who create a harmful, destructive, or abusive work environment. Toxic leaders tend to prioritize their own power, control, or personal gain over the well-being of their team or their organization.

It would actually be a lot easier if leaders who unwittingly create a difficult or even toxic environment were, indeed, 100% evil. Unfortunately, what is more often the case is the leader is simply 100% human—that is, flawed—and lacks awareness of their impact on others. To confuse matters further, a leader’s personality traits will be interpreted differently by each individual on their team. A boss who is perceived as a bully by one person might be perceived by another as simply tough. A boss who seems controlling to one person might be seen by another as caring a lot about accuracy or quality.

It sounds to me like your boss is mostly guilty of being inconsistent, unpredictable, and unconscious of how her behavior affects people.

There is a distinction here between an actual, full-fledged, toxic leader—someone who has consciously chosen to win at all costs no matter the collateral damage—and a flawed leader who inadvertently creates a toxic work environment.

Here are some common traits of a toxic leader:

• Manipulative and self-serving: They use deception, favoritism, or power plays to maintain control.
• Micromanaging and controlling: They don’t trust their employees and constantly interfere with their work.
• Emotionally abusive: They belittle, humiliate, or gaslight employees. They remember mistakes and bring them up in perpetuity. They seek out ways to make others doubt themselves.
• Blame-shifting: They refuse to be accountable and often scapegoat others.
• Lacking empathy: They disregard the feelings, concerns, or professional growth of their team.
• Playing favorites/nepotism: They reward loyalty over competence, which leads to unfair treatment.
• Encouraging a toxic culture: They tolerate or even promote workplace bullying, competition, and fear.

Some examples of toxic leadership styles include but are not limited to:

• The bully, who uses intimidation and fear to control employees.
• The narcissist, who cares only about their own success and recognition and believes they are the only one whose feelings matter.
• The incompetent leader, who has little knowledge, skills, or experience, but lacks the humility required to listen to others or learn anything new.
• The workaholic martyr, who expects others to sacrifice work-life balance like they do, refuses to push back on unrealistic expectations from above, avoids responsibility for prioritizing (because everything is urgent), and behaves like a victim.
• The passive-aggressive leader, who undermines employees subtly rather than addressing issues directly, and avoids giving useful feedback.
• The unpredictably moody and explosive leader, who keeps everyone around them guessing about their emotional state, walking on eggshells, and avoiding interactions for fear of being ambushed.

So here is my question to you: do you think Toxy has any of these traits? Does her consistent style fit any of the profiles? If the answer is yes, encourage your teammates to keep records of inappropriate behavior or egregious incidents for eventual reporting to HR—and, of course, do the same yourself. You also may want to explore your options for another position.

If the environment Toxy has created still allows you to do your best work, there is a chance she isn’t truly toxic, just difficult. You may consider two specific things:

Learn to set boundaries. If something she does sends you into a tailspin, wait until you have calmed down and then tell her. Use “I” language; e.g.: “When this happens, it throws me for a loop.”

The keys to setting boundaries with anyone are:

• Strike when the iron is cool. Meeting strong emotion with your own strong emotion will not yield the desired result.
• Get clear on what you want.
• State your request and describe it clearly and concisely.
• Acknowledge the person when they meet your terms, or be ready to calmly point out when they don’t.

Next time you find yourself in a tailspin, try to figure out what triggered you and formulate a request to avoid such a trigger in the future. You may be able to help your boss understand the impact she has on you, which is possibly not her intention.

Practice taking nothing personally. It sounds like your boss throws everyone on the team off their game, so her behavior probably isn’t actually personal to you. She almost certainly does the same thing to her friends and family. This means it isn’t about you, it’s about her.

The best description of this truth can be found in the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. He says: “What others say and do is a reflection of their own reality, not yours.” If you feel yourself spinning out, ask yourself this question: “Am I taking this personally? And if I am, what might be different if I stopped doing that?” 

This might be something you can help your teammates do as well.

So there you have it. Either your boss really is toxic—in which case, fight back, involve HR, and get out as soon as you can. If she is simply complicated and thorny, give her the benefit of the doubt and gently teach her how to get the best from you.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I’m dealing with a very weird situation. I’m on a large cross-functional team made up of leads and managers. Our leader is the new EVP of operational excellence. He seems to really like some of the members of the team and really dislike others. He regularly forgets to include the people he dislikes in critical meetings and decisions. He makes snarky remarks when someone he dislikes floats an idea, only to compliment the next person who says practically the same thing.

He has created a division between the liked people and the disliked people. It is subtle, and I’m not sure I would have noticed it if one of my best friends at work wasn’t on team reject. When she pointed it out, I couldn’t unsee it. I feel lucky to find myself in the in-group, but can also see how the situation is headed for disaster.

I lead teams myself and can’t understand what this new guy is up to, why he is doing this, or how he hopes to succeed. He also does other things that make no sense, but this particular thing is the worst of it.

What would you do in this situation? I am at a total loss.

So Confused

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Dear So Confused,

Getting operational excellence right is hard enough without shenanigans like this. One trait of a toxic leader is to play favorites. It destabilizes teams by destroying trust. There is a good chance your new EVP is totally unconscious of what he is doing and the effect it is having. In my opinion, this is the behavior of someone who needs to have power over others and achieves it by keeping people nervous and jumpy. If he bullies some people and not others, it automatically creates a reflex in the not-bullied group to stay on his good side, and slowly silences everyone.

 It sounds like this person is not your direct boss, nor the boss of your friend who has been relegated to the out-group, so it may not affect your performance review if this cross-functional team doesn’t accomplish anything. But that may not be true for your friend.

You have a few choices here, but none of them are attractive.

You can do nothing, which will inevitably impact the relationship with your friend.

You can get together with your friend and brainstorm what the two of you could do to change the situation. You might consider recruiting a few more team members from both the in-group and the out-group to engineer some kind of revolt. If you could manage to pull the whole team together, you could include HR to conduct an intervention of sorts. It would only work if the entire team was on board and unanimously demanded that everyone on the team be treated with respect.

You might consider going to the EVP and pointing out what you are observing—but that could be a career-ending move. People who need to have power over others usually aren’t keen to get feedback from anyone, especially not from someone they see as a subordinate. It depends on how much power he has and what kind of trust he has built with his peers and his superiors. Along those lines, you might practice standing up for people he is snarky with—but again, it’s possible all that will accomplish is to get yourself relegated to “team reject,” as you call it.

Look at the situation from all angles with as many of your team members as you trust. If a majority of the team agrees to stick together, you might have a chance to shift the ugly behavior. At the very least, you can probably ensure that nothing gets done, and let it reflect badly on the EVP. Does it appear that I’m condoning subversive behavior? I guess I am, because if people don’t stand up for themselves and each other, leaders like your EVP end up getting promoted and wreaking more havoc from an even stronger position.

Document every incident you remember and start keeping a running log of unacceptable behavior moving forward. This way, you will have a leg to stand on should the situation escalate. It would probably be up to your friend to take this whole mess to HR and to her boss. You might also mention the situation to your own boss, if you trust them.

The more you can get the team to stick together, the better chance you have of getting the EVP to change—or better yet, getting him removed.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.