A toxic environment can affect your mental health, shatter your self-esteem, which reduces your productivity. Employees with good self esteem are typically happy with work, able to focus better, need less time off and generally get along well with their coworkers. On the other hand, employees with low self esteem lack confidence to relate well with others, may make more mistakes and hesitate to put out their best efforts, since their mental and emotional health have been affected.

What is a Toxic Workplace?

Toxic workplaces can be defined as any job where the work, the atmosphere, the people, or any combination of those things cause serious disruptions in the rest of your life. When you work in a toxic work environment, you realise that you leave worse than you got in.

Based on recent trends and discussions on social media, a toxic workplace is very common and what many people face, which has even pushed many into depression.

If one could take a picture of employees before they joined a toxic workplace and pictures of same employees after they experienced the toxicities, the differences will be clear. That shows the immense environment many employees have found themselves in.

How do you develop your self esteem in a toxic workplace ?

Since it takes time to find a new job and you can’t just walk away from this difficult situation immediately, it helps to develop ways to handle the dysfunction in a toxic work environment until you can step into a new job somewhere else:

Understand the cause of the toxicity

Things don’t happen without a reason. In as much as toxicity is very bad and not healthy for anyone, certain factors influence it. A toxic work environment is actually caused by the people in such organizations. Are your superiors the ones instigating it? Is it due to bad employee culture? Could it be self-inflicted through your character or work ethics? These are important questions to ask. Knowing the major causes of a problem will give one the best ways to combat it.

Enjoy What You Do

It is important that you enjoy your job, dreading going to work can affect your productivity and outlook on your day to day tasks. The only way to overcome this feeling is to take pleasure in your duties. You can do so by finding newer, innovative ways to do your job daily. If you can get online and do research on your field then do that and even attend workshops where you can meet experts in your field.

Take Criticism Positively

One of the traits of a toxic workplace is negative criticism from a superior. What you should do is to see criticism in a positive light which will help build you up. Some supervisors can take criticism as a chance to bring down a colleague but the way you react to it is very important. Positive criticism brings to the surface flaws and inadequacies you were blind about, helping you to correct them. Rather than seeing it as a negative thing, learn to accept it as an opportunity to work on your shortcomings.

Keep Developing yourself

One of the reasons a workplace or boss seems toxic is because of an employee’s low productivity, which attracts criticisms. Often your output on a job may be poor and your superiors demand excellence in your execution.

In situations you feel targeted, it might be time to take the opportunity to know why someone makes adverse remarks about your work. In that case, what you need to do is develop yourself, upskill, and enroll in training that can boost your productivity.

That way, you will become better at your work, get good appraisals, be promoted and get your confidence back.

Speak out and be sociable

Most people affected with lack of confidence in the workplace tend to be introverts and therefore do not speak about their work-related issues. If you find that a situation in the work-place is becoming toxic, it is important to speak out no matter what. Hangout with friends, colleagues, families and while away such sorrow. Tell them about your experiences and seek their good counsel.

Many times, by telling trusted ones our problems, it takes a huge weight off our minds and we become emotionally better.