HBR Guide to Navigating the Toxic Workplace

HBR Guide to Navigating the Toxic Workplace

by Harvard Business Review
Released January 2024
Publisher(s): Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN: 9781647825911

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Book description

Is your workplace toxic?

Toxic workplaces take many forms. Whether you're dealing with a narcissistic boss, a backstabbing colleague, endless microaggressions, or a culture of overwork and burnout, it can feel impossible to know what to do. Should you address the issue directly, play office politics, go to HR, or just keep your head down?

The HBR Guide to Navigating the Toxic Workplace will help you set boundaries and change what you can while maintaining your mental health and self-respect through some of the toughest interpersonal challenges you'll face at work.

You'll learn how to:

  • Recognize what's fixable
  • Help bring problems to light
  • Keep your performance up
  • Protect your reputation and your career
  • Prevent a toxic culture from infecting your team
  • Rebuild trust and psychological safety
  • Move on if you choose, without burning bridges

Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Harvard Business Review Guides
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. What You’ll Learn
  6. Contents
  7. Section One: Working in a Harmful Environment
    1. 1. Is Your Job Toxic? Or Is It Just a Job?
    2. 2. Four Ways to Deal with a Toxic Coworker
    3. 3. When You Feel Pressured to Do the Wrong Thing
    4. 4. How Women of Color Can Protect Their Mental Health from Racial Bullying
    5. 5. When You’re Thinking of Taking a Problem to HR
  8. Section Two: Reporting to a Toxic Boss
    1. 6. What to Do When You Have a Bad Boss
    2. 7. Stop Being Micromanaged
    3. 8. When Your Manager Is Gaslighting You
  9. Section Three: Quitting or Staying
    1. 9. Five Surefire Signs That It’s Time to Quit Your Job
    2. 10. Surviving in an Unhappy Workplace
    3. 11. How to Recover from a Toxic Job
  10. Section Four: Managing a Team in a Toxic Workplace
    1. 12. Keep Your Company’s Toxic Culture from Infecting Your Team
    2. 13. High-Performing Groups Need Psychological Safety
    3. 14. Managing a Toxic Employee
    4. 15. How the Best Bosses Interrupt Bias on Their Teams
    5. 16. Tips to Avoid Hiring a Toxic Employee
  11. Section Five: When Culture Leads to Toxicity
    1. 17. How Bullying Manifests at Work
    2. 18. Preventing Toxicity in Hybrid Work
    3. 19. When Office Politics Shortchanges Women and People of Color
    4. 20. How Masculinity Contests Undermine Organizations
    5. 21. Eliminating Blame Culture
    6. 22. The Hazards of a “Nice” Company Culture
  12. Section Six: Taking Action from the Top
    1. 23. Are You Enabling a Toxic Culture Without Realizing It?
    2. 24. Rewarding Toxic Rock Stars Undermines People of Color
    3. 25. The Antidote to Office Gossip
    4. 26. Don’t Let Power Corrupt You
  13. Index

Product information

  • Title: HBR Guide to Navigating the Toxic Workplace
  • Author(s): Harvard Business Review
  • Release date: January 2024
  • Publisher(s): Harvard Business Review Press
  • ISBN: 9781647825911