Toxins in the workplace: affect on organizations and employees

Purpose The purpose of this article is to define toxins such as toxic leader, toxic manager, toxic culture, and toxic organization and explore how they affect the organization's performance and its employees. Design/methodology/approach This article is basically twofold. It is a literature review utilizing a selective bibliography providing advice on information sources and it is comprehensive in that the objective is to cover the mainstream and unique contributors of toxicity. It is also a general review providing an overview of this contemporary issue facing organizations with descriptions of what the problem is and how to address it. Findings Organizations as well as their employees suffer from the affects of toxins that are present within the organization. They also suffer from psychological effects, such as; impaired judgment, irritability, anxiety, anger, an inability to concentrate and memory loss. On the other hand, it has also been found that companies in North America alone lose an excess of 200 billion each year due to employee deviance. Employee deviance has also been found to be the cause of approximately 30 percent of all business failures. Practical implications There are possible solutions to reduce, and sometimes even eliminate, toxicity in an organization. Possible solutions, such as recognition, and the use of toxin handlers to eliminate, reduce, or avoid the infiltration and spreading of these toxins is very important to organizations that suffer from or would like to prevent toxicity in the workplace. Originality/value The article is unique and highly practical for all individuals who are in management and for those who are called on to assume leadership roles mandated to deal with deviance, organizational citizen behavior and toxicity in the organization.