9: Now What Can Individuals Do to Manage or Live With a Toxic Colleague?

Phaik Ai Choo heads up Corporate Solutions for a Singapore-based organisation which brings leadership and talent solutions into for-profit and not-for-profit organisations. I asked Phaik Ai what toxicity meant to her and she shared the following:

It was good to get that idea of tribes, of networks of friends and supporters, underscored and validated as being critical in any struggle against poisonous leadership and toxic humans. Phaik Ai added:

I asked Phaik Ai whether she thought toxic humans really existed. She shared with me that she believes that people are inherently good and that the emergence of what we might term ‘toxicity’ is a function of environment and upbringing – a view with which I agree. Intriguingly, Phaik Ai also said that from an organisational development (OD) perspective, it is the system you're in as well as the structure (i.e. organisational structure) that can also affect behaviour. This was an interesting idea and made me wonder how exactly organisational structures can influence behaviour: could organisational structures even be responsible for creating the conditions for toxicity to emerge in certain contexts?