Most organisations do not deliberately decide to tolerate toxic behaviour. It often emerges gradually through a series of compromises. Which results culturally over time, in death by a thousand cuts.

It presents itself in different guises. It could an individual who consistently undermines colleagues in meetings. Communication which becomes aggressive under pressure. The creation of false narratives to engineer a siege mentality mindset to avert focus from their team or department. Deploying certain behaviours to create visible discomfort within a team, but the individual continues delivering results, or bringing in the deals, or carrying influence internally.

The leadership are of course aware, their problem, so is everyone else.

For a while, this trade off can appear commercially rational. Targets are being achieved, pressure as a consequence eases. Thus, difficult conversations are avoided.

The problem is that toxic behaviour doesn’t remain isolated to the individual displaying it. Its impact spreads like a virus across different individuals, in different teams and infects organisational culture long before it appears in any performance review or culminates in grievance or disciplinary meetings. It weakens collaboration and erodes trust. It causes people to become more guarded, defensive, political and emotionally cautious. Over time, teams adapt around the behaviour that should have been challenged much earlier. The famous quote “what you tolerate, you teach” has never been more accurate.

Pressure is invariably blamed for this dynamic, but pressure itself is usually only a symptom. The underlying causes are often more uncomfortable. Ego, status or internal politics. Fear of missing targets, perceived knowledge dependency on “key” individuals. Leaders who protect outcomes, reputations or relationships rather than standards, values or principles.

Eventually, the unofficial organisational message is something they never intended to say and certainly would never print as a value on a wall :

Results matter more than behaviour.

People take note of this very carefully. More carefully than the stated values in their employee handbook or included on a slide in every presentation. Hence, this is where culture is truly shaped.

Importantly, strong performance cultures are not the problem. High standards, urgency, continuous improvement and accountability matter enormously. That will never change.

The issue is inconsistency and the frequency it is permitted to occur. Once standards become conditional depending on who is involved, and therefore subjective, trust erodes exponentially quickly.

There is, however, a more damaging version of this dynamic where these individuals are not always toxic high performers. Sometimes they are toxic average or poor performers who remain protected through organisational politics, past relationships, leverage or historical influence. Individuals who no longer deliver meaningful value, but have become difficult to challenge because of what they know, who they know or the internal discomfort their removal may create.

At that point, the organisation is no longer protecting performance, it is protecting dysfunction.