Mitchell Kusy

Elizabeth Holloway

“The day this person left our company is considered an annual holiday!” THIS QUOTE, taken from Kusy and Holloway’s research on toxic personalities, echoes the frustration and confusion that come from working with or managing an extremely difficult person. Just one toxic person has the capacity to debilitate individuals, teams, and even organizations. Toxic Workplace! is the first book to tackle the underlying systems issues that enable a toxic person to create a path of destruction in an organization, pervading others’ thoughts and energies, even undermining their very sense of well-being. Based on all-new research with over 400 leaders, many from the Fortune 500 list, this book illustrates how to manage existing toxic behaviors, create norms that prevent the growth or regrowth of toxic environments, and ultimately design organizational communities of respectful engagement. Kusy and Holloway’s research reveals the warning signs that indicate a serious behavioral problem and identifies how this toxicity spreads in systems with long-term effects on organizational climate, even after the person has left. Their two-year, cutting-edge research study provides very specific actions that leaders need to take to reduce both the intensity and frequency of toxic personalities at work. No other book provides this menu of options from a systems perspective with practical relevance in real work situations. You’ll learn how to identify the toxic personality and describe the leader reactions and approaches that typically don’t work. Toxic Workplace! provides hands-on approaches that work with research-based strategies at the individual, team, and organizational level.Toxic Workplace! will provide new insights on how leaders lead, how organizational cultures sustain themselves, and how teams deal with toxic personalities.

Managing Toxic Personalities and Their Systems of Power

Toxic Workplace!

Louellen Essex

Mitchell E. Kusy

Ideal for any leader or manager forced to fly solo in the face of daily and strategic challenges. Or an invaluable tool to help managers get the most out of their working relationship with either an internal or external coach. Manager's Desktop Consultant cuts through the maze of people challenges in the workplace to identify the six most common issues affecting performance, productivity, and profitability. Through detailed scenarios, these experienced consultants and authors describe each problem situation and lay out the key action strategies necessary to build a solid foundation for management success.

Just-in-time Solutions to the Top People Problems that Keep You Up at Night

Manager's Desktop Consultant

Praise for Toxic Workplace! "Toxic Workplace! describes how to identify and best work with toxic personalities. It also provides a systemic approach for creating a culture that's positive and respectful while improving the bottom line. Kusy and Holloway share how their national research translates into real-world practices in organizations. I endorse their practical, concrete approaches that will make a significant difference in organizations today and in the future." —Gregg Steinhafel, president and CEO, Target Corporation "Toxic Workplace! brings a rare and valuable view of one of the great challenges facing leaders in today's organizations. It is a significant guidebook to the healthy enterprise of the future, not only because of Kusy and Holloway's systems approach to dealing with toxic personalities, but also their unique practice of creating communities of respectful engagement. This book demonstrates how this impacts both organizational social responsibility and the bottom line." —Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.; founding president and chairman of Leader to Leader Institute, formerly The Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management "Transforming the culture to support the strategy and mission is the real stuff of leadership. Toxic Workplace! gives you the research-based tools to identify and deal with the 'dark side' of this important dynamic. Read it and you will engage your organization in new, more authentic, and effective ways!" —Kevin Cashman, author, Leadership from the Inside Out and senior partner, Korn/Ferry Leadership & Talent Consulting

You have likely heard stories from friends, family members, and colleagues who quit a job because of a toxic person—an individual who belittles, shames, humiliates, shames, or bullies. You may not have realized that these individuals not only take their tolls on our emotional psyches, but the financial outcomes of their organizations as well. Through this book’s many case examples, as well as evidence-based practices and templates, each chapter singles out one main issue and how to resolve it with respect and clarity. Dr. Kusy presents concrete practices that will restore civility and respect into your organization as well as with increased financial performance. Some of these practices include: Calculating the real financial cost of toxic people in your organization. Providing direct and respectful feedback to a toxic peer, direct report, and even your boss. Replacing traditional exit interviews -- that often don’t work very well -- with a method for dealing with toxic chameleons who "knock down and kiss up." Hiring, engaging talent, and even firing people based on a new approach to values-based performance management. You will emerge with a newfound understanding that restores personal well-being and increased financial performance.

A Leader’s Guide to Offset the Financial and Emotional Costs of Toxic Employees

Why I Don't Work Here Anymore

Based on research and candid interviews with some well-known leaders whose costly blunders have made headlines, this book examines seven common mistakes, debunks myths surrounding mistake recovery, and identifies seven strategies for rebounding from near-fatal errors.

Mitchell Kusy

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