I’ve never met a leader who dreamed of having a toxic culture. Leaders want to lead a healthy culture, and volunteers want to serve in one as well. Nothing will make a great volunteer or staff member run away faster than a toxic culture!

I’ve had the privilege to work in some healthy cultures and the nightmare of a few toxic ones. The healthy cultures brought out my best, while the toxic cultures sucked the life out of me. Nobody wants to serve in a toxic culture. Nobody. So if you want to have a healthy organization, you have to have a healthy culture!

While leaders don’t dream of having a toxic culture, they still exist. Why? It’s because many leaders don’t know the signs of a toxic culture. They don’t know what makes healthy culture healthy. A major key to leading a healthy culture is understanding what makes toxic cultures so toxic.

Here are five things that, when present, lead to a healthy culture. When these things disappear or are lacking, a culture will quickly turn toxic.

Five Indicators of a Toxic Culture

1) Lack of Listening

Youth workers who lead well listen well. There is no way to lead people well if you don’t listen to them. A lack of listening will always lead to a toxic culture.

Listening to your people lets them know you care. It lets them know you value them. As a matter of fact, one of the quickest ways to devalue a person is not listening or listening poorly.

Great leaders are great listeners. Taking the time to stop and listen to leaders is an easy way to improve your team’s culture. Toxic cultures talk at their people. Healthy cultures listen to them.

2) Lack of Resources

To lead people well, you have to give them the resources they need. Healthy cultures are organizations that resource their leaders well! It’s difficult for a person to lead well when they don’t have the resources they need. However, when they are resourced well they are freed up to focus on leading people.

A lack of resources can wreck your organization! You don’t need a ton of money or flashy toys to have a healthy culture. You will need to provide enough resources to give your leaders what they need to lead well though.

Healthy organizations give people what they need to lead at a high level.

3) Lack of Encouragement

Want a toxic culture? Stop encouraging your leaders and volunteers. Nothing turns a culture toxic faster than a lack of encouragement!

Leaders who are intentional about being great encouragers lead at another level. At the end of the day, people want to be valued.  By encouraging your people, you add value to them. You add value in a way that makes them want to be a part of your team.

People have options. They don’t have to work with you. The thing that separates healthy organizations is their people WANT to be there. Why? Because their leaders encourage them and call out the greatness inside of them!

People perform best when they’re believed in. Encouraging your team members is the best way to get the best out of them. It’s also the best way to retain them. Healthy teams encourage their people.

4) Lack of Care

Nobody should care more for your leaders than you! The healthiest organizations care more about their leaders as people than employees. It doesn’t matter how good of a job they’re doing if their life is falling apart. The mess will eventually spill over into their work.

On the other side of the coin, people who are cared for as individuals tend to be healthier. Organizations that care well for their people will retain the most employees. People desire deeply to serve where they are cared about.

If you want a healthy team, care for your people more than you care about your numbers. The best way to show you’re doing a good job is to show how you care for your people. Healthy cultures focus on the people while toxic cultures focus on the bottom line. People make our teams so it’s time we make them our priority.

5) Lack of Passion

In toxic cultures, people do what they do because they “have to” or are “supposed to.” Whereas in healthy cultures, people do it because it matters. They do it because they want to and because it makes an impact worth sacrificing for!

One or the most visible differences between healthy and toxic cultures is passion. Healthy cultures are full of passionate people who love what they do and would do it for free if they had to. Toxic cultures are filled with people working out of duty and dogma.

The problem is that people who serve out of duty will become depleted. When their cup is empty, they will walk away. People with passion will press on through difficult times. Their passion will drive them when nothing else will.

I would rather have passionate people serving on my team than talented people. You can teach less talented people to perform better, but you can’t teach passion.  Healthy teams are made up of passionate people.

Healthy cultures are ones that listen, resource, encourage, and care for their people. They’re so passionate about what they do and why they do it that they reproduce the same passion in others. What kind of culture is present in your organization?

Where is your team strong? Where can your team grow? What do you think separates a healthy culture from a toxic one?