In one of my earlier jobs before I founded Douglas Shaw & Associates, my father passed away unexpectedly. Not only was I was torn with grief, but I had to take care of my mother as well. I went into work to explain my situation and that I would be unable to work that day, only for my boss’s reaction to completely catch me by surprise. He told me that with clients coming in the next day, he needed my spreadsheets turned in that day, no exceptions. It didn’t matter that I was wracked with grief. In that moment, my employer showed me that he cared more about productivity than he did about human beings. 

I never forgot that day, and it’s been fundamental in shaping my understanding of toxic cultures. 

What Is a Toxic Culture? 

We’ve all worked under toxic cultures, and they don’t have to be as noticeably malicious as what happened to me to be considered “toxic.” Many have asked me how can you tell if you’re living in a toxic culture, and the answers come subtly. Five such indicators of a toxic work culture could include: 

• Leadership avoids accountability 

• A “cutthroat” competition to earn your way up the ladder 

• “Quiet firing” that decimates morale 

• A culture that fails to call out abuse or discrimination 

• Promoting  results at the expense of relationships 

Toxicity spreads quietly. Leaders may not even realize they are the source, and why would they? Everyone is too afraid to point it out. By the time they notice, morale has collapsed, innovation has stalled, and their best people have left.  

What are the signs of a toxic work culture? High turnover, broken relationships and declining profits show a culture that demands obedience and seldom inspires excellence. This type of toxic environment is like an invasive weed: growing fast, choking out healthy growth, and leaving the ground barren.  

 Can a Toxic Culture Ever Be Fixed? 

In searching for the answer to that question, I had to define the alternative to a toxic culture, and no antonym originally came to mind. After some of my own research, I landed on the phrase “curative culture,” after the Latin word cūrāre, which means to heal. This type of culture provides a way to undo the damage of toxicity through restoring balance to the workplace by valuing people as much as performance. 

In order to fix a toxic culture, a curative one must first address the root issue of failing to value employees as actual human beings. In my experience, that means a return to the ancient concept of imago Dei.  

According to the book of Genesis, human beings were uniquely crafted by God’s hand and made in the “imago Dei,” or “made in the image of God.” This doctrine is central to a Christian ethic and to undoing toxicity in workplace cultures. It says that every being, no matter who they are or what they do, has an innate value. When I sat down to brainstorm how a toxic culture can be corrected this was a starting point that actually worked.  

 Values: The Lifeblood of a Culture 

A foundational step of a curative culture is establishing values and measuring everything by them.  A mission statement is essential because it communicates the purpose of a company,  whereas  values determine what it feels like to work at a company. At Douglas Shaw & Associates, this meant a multi-day retreat with leadership to determine what mattered most to us and how we wanted our workplace to feel. Honesty, integrity and excellence are just a few of the values of a curative culture that we identified, and we realized if we defined what our ideal culture would feel like, those values would have to start with our own leadership. 

A culture focused only on the numbers will inevitably destroy itself, but creating a curative culture begins with how leaders behave. Do they create space for people to raise problems without reprisal? Do they show that accountability applies equally throughout the organization? When leaders model openness and humility, it signals that trust is not a slogan but a practice. Embodying and embracing values at the leadership level is far more important than displaying them on a wall and walking away. 

It also requires consistency. Companies cannot declare “people are our greatest asset” one day and treat them as expendable the next. The damage of what quiet firing looks like in a company – the slow destruction of safety, dependability and trust by employers who intentionally drive employees away without ever formally firing them – is debilitating. Instead, recognizing excellence should be done when achieved, mistakes are addressed constructively, and career paths are made transparent. When employees see that their contributions matter, they invest more of themselves in the company’s future. 

 So, What Now? 

What I am suggesting is that by embracing a curative culture, toxicity will diminish, and corporate health, both financial and cultural, will greatly improve. By investing in people with genuine care and consistency, they will produce growth that lasts far beyond any single quarter.  

Caring for who people are as well as what they can do creates a culture where work communities thrive. An old maxim says that it takes an employee just a week to realize they’re in the wrong job, and it usually takes an employer two.  

Leaders must continually evaluate whether their culture is tending towards toxicity with its inherent dangers to both the bottom line and the work community, or whether they are creating a healthy work environment where both profits and people thrive.