Don't Let A Dysfunctional Workplace Decide Who You Become

Working in a dysfunctional environment can change you. It creeps up on you, insidiously molding you into someone you never knew you could become. Sometimes it happens so slowly that you don’t even recognize the change. Other times, the shift is so stark that you snap out of it and realize that what you’ve been doing isn’t aligned with who you are.

Regardless of how it happens, many of us have been there.

Perhaps it starts with your boss punishing disagreement, taking credit for your work, or changing direction without acknowledging the mess left behind. Maybe leaders across the company make decisions through politics and favoritism. People regularly talk about each other rather than to each other, and your hard work is routinely overridden, ignored, or disposed of. Before long, you’re surrounded by dishonesty, mistrust, and a culture where the best brown-nosers survive.

Over time, you adapt.

Maybe you stop openly disagreeing. Then you stop putting in extra effort, and eventually you’re doing the bare minimum, because nothing you do seems to matter. Maybe you complain about your boss in group texts during team meetings. You talk about coworkers behind their backs, ignore commitments, withhold information, or stop caring whether your work affects anyone else. And to their faces, you do what you can to be seen as nice and friendly so you can coast by.

Some of those behaviors may help you protect yourself. But others may slowly turn you into someone you never intended to become.

And that is worth paying attention to.

You’ll notice I use the word “dysfunctional” more than “toxic.” “Toxic” describes how a place feels. “Dysfunctional” describes how it works: the habits, incentives, and behaviors that keep producing the same results. And a system is something we can actually look at.

You may need to stay

Let’s acknowledge reality before going any further.

Sometimes we remain in highly dysfunctional companies because we need the income, healthcare, stability, or experience. The job market is difficult, costs are rising, and walking away without something else lined up may not be a financially responsible option.

So I am not suggesting you “just leave.”

Leaving may be the right decision for you, but that decision comes with real consequences, and I totally get it. You may need to save money, rebuild your network, update your resume, put some feelers out there, develop another skill, or find another kind of opportunity that can support you and your family.

I’ve been there. I’ve walked away from a toxic, dysfunctional environment before (with and without another job lined up) as a single mom of three. So I recognize the seriousness of the situation and the potential trade-offs.

Regardless of what you choose, it’s not easy. But it doesn’t need to cost you your integrity and sense of self-worth.

I also understand the need to “play the game” while you’re there.

But what exactly is the game?

Define the game you’re playing

“Playing the game” can mean almost anything, which makes it difficult to see what you’re actually choosing to do.

It’s a phrase constantly tossed around in the corporate and tech worlds, and it usually means navigating the unwritten rules, making yourself visible, and choosing which battles are worth fighting.

Whatever it means, if you use it to frame your situation, it’s important to define what it means to you, without judging yourself.

Maybe it sounds something like: In order to survive this environment, I don’t openly disagree with my boss in meetings. I socialize ideas with my cross-functional peers before introducing them publicly. I document important decisions and breakdowns. I complete what’s required of me, and I do it well, but I no longer volunteer for additional work that won’t be acknowledged or supported.

Ok, now you have something you can look at and work with.

Not openly disagreeing with a retaliatory boss may be a reasonable way to protect yourself. Socializing ideas before presenting them is a smart way to build support (and frankly is strongly recommended even in non-toxic environments). And documenting decisions and breakdowns helps you keep an accurate record of what happens and cover your back.

Those choices don’t necessarily compromise your integrity. They’re actually thoughtful ways of navigating conditions you didn’t create and don’t currently have the power to change.

Notice the difference between that last choice and doing the bare minimum. Declining extra work that won’t be recognized is a boundary. You’re still doing what you committed to, and doing it well. Doing the bare minimum because nothing matters is disengagement. One protects your time and energy. The other slowly lowers the standard you hold yourself to.

But other adaptations deserve a closer look.

Like when you sit through Zoom meetings while participating in a group text mocking the person speaking. Or when you complain that nobody communicates directly, but discuss your concerns with everyone except the person involved. Or when you resent the lack of accountability, but stop honoring your own commitments because nobody else follows through on theirs anyway.

Those adaptations may be helping you survive, but how different are they from the dysfunction you’re complaining about?

Your response becomes part of the system

Yes, you may not have created the dysfunction.

You may even have been mistreated, disregarded, denied opportunities, or repeatedly shown that honesty comes with a cost. I get it. Your behavior did not develop in a vacuum. The environment shaped how you learned to survive within it.

But the way you adapt also affects the environment.

When leaders punish disagreement, people learn to stay quiet. Staying quiet to protect yourself is one thing. But when people stay quiet in meetings and then litigate everything privately afterward, leaders receive less honest information. Decisions get worse, resentment grows, and talking behind people’s backs becomes the default way to communicate.

You may think that’s not your problem. That the dysfunction was there long before you arrived. And again, that may be true. It is also true that when you adopt the same behaviors (complaining, gossiping, etc.), you are contributing to that dysfunctional system.

The system shapes people, and people’s responses reinforce or change the system.

Round and round it goes.

That doesn’t mean everyone holds equal responsibility - absolutely not. A CEO has more authority and influence over the company’s culture than an individual employee trying to keep their job. Power matters.

But less power doesn’t mean you have no power.

You still have choices about how you treat people, whether you honor your word, what quality of work you produce, what conversations you participate in, and what behaviors you refuse to normalize.

What is this protecting, and what is it practicing?

If you’re working at a dysfunctional workplace, I urge you to pause, step back, and ask yourself a few questions:

Notice that the question isn’t, “Am I becoming a terrible human being?”

That’s a verdict about who you are, and a verdict gives you very little room to work with. “Am I someone who gossips?” is different. If the honest answer is yes, that’s fine. It’s an observation, and an observation is something you can work with. So start with what’s actually happening (what you’re doing, how often, and with whom) separate from the story you’re telling yourself about what it says about you.

Then ask yourself whether gossiping is how you want to operate. Is that how you want to show up? Do you want to spend hours every week mocking people, complaining, withholding information, or deliberately disengaging from work that still affects other human beings?

Because who you become isn’t a verdict. It’s something you practice. If you repeat those dysfunctional, disempowering behaviors for another year, what will you become better at? Who are you practicing your way into? And is that someone you’d want to work with? 

Your answer may tell you that something you’re doing needs to change.

Choose how you want to operate while you’re there

Choosing not to contribute to the dysfunction doesn’t mean becoming the office martyr, confronting every injustice, or exhausting yourself trying to repair an entire company you don’t control.

It starts with getting clear on two things. First, what you want to get out of your time there: experience, growth, income, a runway to your next move. Second, where your power actually sits. There’s your sphere of control (your own thoughts, words, and actions) and your sphere of influence (the decisions and behaviors of the people around you, which you can affect but not dictate).

That clarity changes everything. So many of us operate on autopilot inside systems we’ve never really looked at. Once you can see the system you’re in, and the one you’re running inside it, you can start choosing.

Within your sphere of control, it may mean refusing to pile on when a conversation turns cruel, or not participating in group texts during meetings. It may mean honoring your commitments, even when other people don’t or when no one sees, without over-extending yourself or volunteering extra time. It can mean being cordial with others, even though you don’t necessarily like them, and still producing work that helps the company grow even if the company fails to appreciate it. You can also continue to document what happens, set boundaries, protect your energy, and invest in skills or work you’ll be proud to carry with you, no matter where you are.

Within your sphere of influence, you can create new conditions for the people around you. Maybe you learn others’ preferred communication styles and speak directly with them in a non-confrontational way. Maybe you check in on your teammates or direct reports simply because you care about how they’re doing. Or you share information someone needs instead of using it as leverage.

And when you make a mistake or contribute to a breakdown, you can own your part and clean up your mess, because that is how you choose to operate.

Be honest with yourself that some of this may cost you something. Opting out of the group text may mean being left out of it. Speaking directly won’t always go well. Sharing information in a place where it’s been used as currency may make you stand out. That doesn’t make these the wrong choices. It means making them consciously, knowing why they matter to you.

And to be clear, if what you’re experiencing crosses into harassment, discrimination, or retaliation, that’s no longer a question of how you choose to operate. Document it and look into your options, whether that’s HR, an employment attorney, or another formal channel.

None of this requires you to pretend the environment is healthy. It doesn’t excuse poor leadership, erase structural problems, or guarantee that doing the right thing will be rewarded.

It simply means the company doesn’t get to make every decision about who you become.

Staying doesn’t mean surrendering every choice

If the environment is harming you and your attempts to navigate it aren’t enough, leaving may still be the right answer, and you can start working toward it now.

Update your resume, contact someone in your network, save what you can, explore another industry, apply for one job, connect with external recruiters, take on a freelance project. Whatever it is, give yourself an outcome to work toward and begin creating options. You have agency.

In the meantime, remember that the eight or nine hours you spend working each day are still a part of your life.

You are still thinking, creating, communicating, learning, practicing, and reinforcing ways of being. Whatever you repeatedly do to survive the environment doesn’t automatically disappear when you close your laptop.

You take yourself with you. Wherever you go, there you are.

So you may not have created the dysfunction, and you may not have the power to fix it. But you still have choices about how you participate in it, how you protect yourself from it, and what you practice becoming while you’re there.

The environment will influence you.

The question is: who will you choose to be while you’re in it?

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Separate what happened from the story you're telling about it

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