Toxicity in the Workplace

I was very intrigued by my colleagues, David's, research regarding "toxic behaviors" in the workplace. 

As we all know my organization supports field technicians and field operators in the refining and petrochemical industry. We have an extremely high turnover rate and one thing we try to focus on in this industry is leadership development to try and curtail that turnover and help with safety related issues. you can imagine that the more turnover we have the newer the folks in the field, this leads to accidents. We find that often our leaders are not able to mentor and lead their teams effectively and that this can lead to high turnover rates (as well as accidents). Generally our leaders are promoted in the industry because they are good at completing projects in the field, not necessarily because  they are good with conflict management or understand the best way to communicate to their teams. These leaders may have been mentored by leaders who yelled and used harsh language and techniques, and only know that style of leadership and lean on that for their teams as well. 

Our leadership development is based on the idea of breaking that cycle. Of not just teaching our leaders more appropriate ways to lead and communicate with their teams but allowing them the chance to practice and role play those techniques before trying them in the field.  I'm trying to also create a program that allows our member organizations to track the success rate of this training by determining if the turnover rates fall, if there is better communication and if the role playing and techniques are transferring to the field environment. 

Although they may not immediately admit it, I think many of our leaders would say that an environment of toxic behavior is a traditional part of this field environment they support. I'd love to know more about your study to see if there are ways to incorporate it in our class as well.