08/12/2026
Want to Keep Your Best Employees Happy and Productive? Stop These 6 Common Habits of Toxic Managers
Both management and HR know that people leave companies far more because of their managers than for compensation or benefits. Think about that. You hire for your team, compensate fairly and competitively, your employees are genuinely happy to join the organization, you invest in their training and melding into the culture… and then they leave. Toxic managers are poison within a company and its based more on values than skills. It pays to recognize the signs so you can act before it’s too late.
After nearly 30 years of studying leadership literature, interviewing hundreds of leaders, and coaching my own clients, I have found that leadership, at its purest, revolves around one main idea: serving people’s needs so they can achieve their full potential.
Truth be told, however, not everyone selected for the prestigious role of leading other human beings is equally qualified. Some, in fact, shouldn’t be there at all.
While exploring the opposite side of true leadership for many of those years, I discovered some toxic management behaviors and practices that can disengage employees and harm organizations and their bottom lines.
Here are six of the most common.
https://nimblereporting.com/blog/want-to-keep-your-best-employees-happy-and-productive-stop-these-6-common-habits-of-toxic-managers