Episode 28: Discover Your Strengths To Upgrade Your Career
Our strengths are incredibly powerful clues into what roles we would thrive in vs. what roles we would be miserable in.
In this episode, Ahlia Kitwana covers:
Using your strengths to demonstrate your value at work
How to use your strengths to figure out your next step
How to lean on the strengths you do you have to make up for areas
Creating growth opportunities when you are uncomfortable
Check out Careal Bayo here!
Full Transcript:
[00:01:05] Nicole Case: Welcome back to the Upgraded Career podcast. I'm your host Nicole Case, and today we are talking about how to prevent a toxic workplace if you are a leader. So last week we heard from Jessica Sweet on how to heal from burnout and toxic workplaces, but if you are a leader, , I know that you want to do what you can to prevent that from ever happening, ever in your own organization.
[00:01:33] Well, many times toxic workplaces start from the top of the organization and radiate down into the rest of the workplace. But there are microcultures inside of teams that you definitely will have more influence over again if you are leading that organization. I know I've worked at some really awesome companies, but the specific org that I was that I was in was really, really toxic.
[00:01:58] And now you can also question. How that was allowed from the highest level leaders. But the reality is that people can have some really different work experiences depending on who their direct manager or leader is. So again, here we are today to talk about the six ways that you can prevent a toxic workplace as a leader.
[00:02:19] So let's dive in. So number one, set clear expectations and hold people accountable to those. So this is both the what and the how. This is. Letting people know very clearly and very specifically what they are responsible for, what their deliverables are, the type of work that they need to be focused on, the top priorities and how you expect them to get it done.
[00:02:46] Now, this isn't that you wanna micromanage everything and you're, um, actually that's absolutely not anything you wanna be doing if you wanna prevent a toxic workplace. But if you set a very clear expectation, These are the deliverables. This is what needs to get done. And even engaging people on the team to kind of even help set what those priorities are.
[00:03:07] Brainstorming as a team, that's even better if that's possible. So that's the what? The how is actually like the behaviors and those soft skills and those values that you expect your team to uphold. So, , it's great if your team's bringing in the top sales, but if they are doing it unethically, if they are lying to get the deals, if they are, you know, bashing other people, other, other customers or other competitors or whatever, or they're just, you know, you know, creating, you know, such a, a chaotic workplace for everybody to be in the results that they.
[00:03:49] Now all of a sudden aren't, um, aren't as valuable or aren't as important because how they got to that end state is just so distracting. Or just, again, not living to the values that you're expecting people to live to. So, Again, be very clear about the type of work, the outcomes, the deliverables and those timelines and just how we expect people to show up and engage with each other, right?
[00:04:15] So it's the what and the how. That we wanna be super clear about then we have to actually hold people accountable to , to those expectations, right? We wanna reward and recognize those positive behaviors that we're observing, that we're seeing. We want to, we want to be, um, highlighting people that are doing a really great.
[00:04:34] But then we also wanna be dealing with issues immediately. When I worked in hr, this is what I would see that could derail a team so quickly, is not having clear expectations. People are confused about what they should be working on. It's kind of chaotic. Um, people are feeling kind of, um, You know, like they don't have a direction and then whenever issues crop up or they, maybe there's some conflict or something like that, and that's not dealt with immediately from the manager, that can really create this toxic workplace where people again, just don't feel like they wanna come to work and do their best work, or they feel like they can't do their best work.
[00:05:09] So the. Way to help prevent toxic workplaces as a leader is to kind of piggyback off of this first one, which is to communicate clearly, often, and transparently. We wanna be sharing what's going on more broadly within the organization. Sometimes we can get so deep or just so kind of tunnel vision into our own.
[00:05:30] Departments that we kind of forget about what's going on in the larger organizations and sometimes we just don't understand the work that we're doing or why are we doing it and how it connects to anything else. So this is your role as a leader to start trickling down that information about what's going on within the broader organization.
[00:05:51] This also really helps to keep that rumor mill at bay as well if you're constantly sharing. , um, information, and you're not, you know, you're not holding things close to your chest all the time. You're not hoarding information or gatekeeping information. This can really help, again, keep that rumor mill at bay because you're, you're sharing the information.
[00:06:09] People, people will, um, fill the void. If there's a void in information or void in communication, they will fill that void with usually the worst thing possible, right? So it's really important that you are constant. Disseminating that information down into your teams. Now, when I say, you know, communicating clearly oftenly and transparently, this doesn't mean that sh you're sharing all the deep, dark secrets or information that is, you know, or plans or that maybe aren't ready for primetime yet.
[00:06:43] Maybe you haven't worked through all of the scenarios, you haven't worked through everything as a leadership team yet, and it's not quite ready to be shared with other people. Going out and communicating too early. Sometimes whenever the, the plan is half baked, that can also create lots of rumors that can also create uncertainty and chaos and things like that.
[00:07:04] So when I say sharing transparently, it's sharing when it's appropriate to do that or, or when things are a little bit more baked or you have a little bit more information to share, or you're just super clear about, Hey, we're having conversations. Project or we're having conversations around this direction.
[00:07:21] It's not fully baked yet. We haven't made all the decisions yet, but I just wanna keep you in the loop. You have to again, decide as a leader, what is important to share with your team. It's gonna, again, it's gonna depend on the, the levels, um, and experience levels of the people on your team. Um, , and it's gonna depend just kind of on the personality of the team and the sensitivity of the information.
[00:07:42] So you're gonna need to use your judgment there, but I find that more often, not communicating more, um, more than you think you should typically is the right way to go. And so you can do this by having regular one-on-ones with your team. having team meetings. And what this does is it enables you to have a two-way street with conversation.
[00:08:05] So again, you're able to share what's going on, um, you know, a kind of above you in the organization, what else is happening, um, in the company. And it's allowing. your team to have a safe space to come to you and ask you questions or for you just to keep an eye on what's going on in your team. Um, you know, if there's like conflict that's happening within the team.
[00:08:26] If you've got people that are kind of losing the saddle or they're just not super excited about what's going on, or they're confused. again, you having regular one-on-ones and, and regular team meetings. This creates that safe and open place that people know they can come to you and have these conversations.
[00:08:43] So this helps you keep, keep an eye on what's, and keep a pulse on what's happening inside of your team so that you aren't blindsided on, again, conflict or issues or situations going. And again, this is where we wanna encourage open discussion, knowledge sharing, where again, we all feel like, um, we have, we have a voice and that we are, um, that we're encouraged to share it.
[00:09:08] So the third, um, the third. Thing that you can do as a leader to ensure you don't have a toxic workplace on your hands is to encourage collaboration instead of competition. So we wanna make sure that we're giving credit where credit is due, that we're not pitting employees or teams against each other.
[00:09:27] We're not doing this whole us versus them thing. I would see this a lot when I. In, in corporate hr. I thought this was always so interesting where just like these artificial lines and barriers and hierarchies that we would create, you know, um, you know, this team works in California and this team works in, in North Carolina, and then all of a sudden just what that does is that creates, um, some level of division or some level of competition.
[00:09:53] Why? Why does the California team get to do this thing? And we don't get to do this thing? Um, maybe you have some employees who work remotely or work hybrid and you have some employees that must come into the office for, for whatever reason. They just have to do that. Or that's a policy, you know, why is it that such and such gets to work from home and I don't get to work from home?
[00:10:14] Right? So where you are able to create, um, standard process. Standard policies and practice and encourage that, um, collaboration instead of competition that's gonna help you keep, um, ensure that again, your teammates and your employees want to work together, not work against each other. Um, because I've seen definitely in toxic workplaces where people just try to one up each other.
[00:10:41] People start taking credit for other people's. and that's not something that you wanna have to get in the middle of, right. Be, or that's not something that you're gonna wanna have to manage. So, you know, making sure, again, if you are communicating expectations clearly, and you're, and you're having regular one-on-ones and you know what's going on in your team, it's less likely that, um, you're gonna have people throwing people under the bus or having this, this toxicity where people are just battling it out with each other.
[00:11:12] and you need to make sure that you're not playing favorites amongst the team, right? So that people don't feel like they have to battle, battle it out or one up each other to get your attention or to get your praise, or to get, um, get your recognition. So the more that you are regularly, um, rewarding and recognizing those positive behaviors that we talked about, you're having those regular conversations with people.
[00:11:35] That in and of itself is going to encourage collaboration instead of competi. The fourth thing you can do to help prevent a toxic work environment is just making sure people have the resources that they need to get their jobs done and be successful. And this is gonna start with hiring. Well, right out the gate.
[00:11:54] This is gonna start with ensuring that. , you are super clear about the type of work that your team is working on, the volume of work, and therefore, you know the type of person that you might need to bring on the team. So you are hiring for the right roles at the right time, and you're putting them on the, in the right chair or the in the right seat on the bus so that we can all be moving forward.
[00:12:18] So that starts there about figuring out what, what's the work and, and, and what's the volume and what is it that we need, that we need this person to do. And then going out and finding that person that, again, amplifies the values that you, that you are, you are expecting your, your team to, um, to adhere to.
[00:12:38] That they're gonna be able to get the job done. Not only deliver those ex, deliver on those expectations, but again, that they are going to be that culture ad and that they are going to. Be behaving in the way that you expect your team to be behaving. So it starts with hiring, well, having having a, um, a, a full staff of employees that can actually get the work done.
[00:13:04] Now, I know this is, this can be a really, really tough thing for as a leader, because I get it, especially right now out there, budgets are tight. We've maybe laid off some people. We've frozen hiring budgets. We need to be able to give people the resources they need to be successful. And sometimes that means adding to the team.
[00:13:23] And if you are not able to add to the team or make sure you're bringing in, um, or you're not staffed at the, at the way that you'd like to be, then we need to start thinking about, okay, what are, um, what are some things that we can delay take off the plate? Or what are some things that we can simplify a little bit more so that we aren't constantly asking our employee?
[00:13:44] To do more with less. If there is anything that you, you hear anything from me today? This idea of asking our employees to consistently, constantly, long-term, asking them to do more with less, that is a really great way to create a toxic burnout work environment for your team. And they are gonna leave you and then you're gonna be in worse shape than if you would've.
[00:14:08] Adjusted timelines a little bit adjusted expectations or adjusted workload in order to fit the current budget situation. Now again, I get, I've been there, I get it that there are are times and situations where, , all the resources are sh are, are short and you know, you might need to ask somebody to do more than what, um, than maybe capacity is or driving towards a certain, a certain short term outcome or, you know, you're closing out the quarter or, or whatever you're doing.
[00:14:38] I get that there might be some, some times, um, throughout the year that that's necessary. , but that cannot be a consistent message that you are saying over and over again quarter after quarter, year after year. Again, you're gonna burn out your team. It's gonna be a toxic work environment. Cuz what? What do people do whenever they are pushed to the max and they feel like there is no end in sight?
[00:15:03] They start end up behaving and performing in a way that is probably not the expect. that or, or that you have or just, again, they're, they're not going to be behaving or performing in a way that is conducive to that positive and healthy, safe work environment. So it's really important that we are staffed appropriately or if we're not staffed appropriately, that we have adjusted, um, expectations and adjusted the work.
[00:15:34] We also need to make sure that we are training our employees right from the get-go. That we have a really great way to onboard our new team members so that they can be brought up to speed really quickly. I don't know about you, but I hate being a beginner. Like there's, it's so, it's so interesting because there's a part of me that loves.
[00:15:53] new things and novel things and fresh starts like that feels really good and I love that. But then there are other, other ways though on the other. The other side to that coin is that I hate being a beginner. It's really uncomfortable being a beginner. And so I bet your employees feel that way as well.
[00:16:11] So it's really important to bring people in. and train them up really, really well right from the get go so that they can feel like they can contribute and that they kind of have a little bit of control over things. And they feel like they, that they're able to rock and roll really soon because you're top your top performers.
[00:16:28] That's what they want, right? They wanna come in, they wanna do a really great job, they wanna make a big impact. And setting them up, um, in the right way, right from the beginning is gonna be so, so critical here. Then we wanna make sure that we are also providing ongoing training and support. So as we're seeing just like this economy and, and these industries, we are moving so fast, things are changing so fast that we have to continue to support our employees in giving them the training that they need, giving them, um, The ongoing, um, support in this way so that they can continue, um, growing and developing in their career, and again, continuing to perform in the way that I know that they wanna perform as well.
[00:17:11] This also means giving people the tools that they need. Um, you know, what are some tools out there, especially if you are, um, in a, in a place where you know, you're not really able to hire. Um, people, you're not able to be as fully staffed as you'd like to be. Where are some places that you can invest maybe in some tools or some automations, um, or maybe you cr you know, carve out some time in order to again, streamline some certain, some like legacy processes that might be bogging things down so that you can free up time for your employees.
[00:17:43] So what are some of those tools that you might be able to invest a little bit of money in upfront, um, that's not as high as an employee salary and. But might at least be able to, um, again, help them, help them be able to just do the job, do the job really well, do their job in the way that they, they need to do the job.
[00:18:01] And again, finally just giving people the time to do their work. Right. I, I know this was definitely me when I was in corporate, but I'm seeing this, um, also with my clients, is just having your employees in meetings all day long, especially if. if they're remote. Cuz a lot of times whenever we have remote teams or we just have people that, you know, we just have dispersed teams.
[00:18:28] Right. You know, this is a global economy. If people are working all over the world and trying to collaborate together, you know, op, you know, we're getting on virtual calls and it's really easy to stack those back to back, to back to back. And then, , all of a sudden it's the end of the day and you've been in eight hours worth of meetings and when does the actual work get done?
[00:18:45] Right? It ends up happening at night and on the weekends, and we need to be giving our teams and our employees and ourselves, frankly, the, the white space on our calendars in, in this blank space on our calendars in order to do the work, in order to do the thinking, you know, do the critical thinking and the strategic thinking about, about our jobs.
[00:19:08] Right. , you know, if, if you're feeling like, man, I'm in a lot of meetings, I'm feeling like my team might also be in a lot of meetings. Maybe it's time to sit down and just kind of revisit that. I actually encourage people to sit down and take a look at their calendars every quarter, just to be like, is is this where I need to be spending my time?
[00:19:26] Am I spending my time in the right places? If it's in, if it's in a bunch of meetings, or again, working through a bunch of processes that are just really bogging down the system. . I encourage you every quarter just to kind of sit down and take a look at all of those, just to kind of. Where can we make some adjustments?
[00:19:44] Because if you want your employees to perform really well, you gotta get them, give them the time to do it right. And if you're not giving them the time to do it, this is where burnout, toxicity starts to creep in because then people are getting, um, really, really bitter and really sour about the fact that they just don't have time to get their job done and they don't feel like.
[00:20:05] The leadership team is listening to them or supporting them in, in trying, in trying to do that. So again, we need to give people the resources that they need to be successful. That means making sure that we're staffed properly for the type of, for the amount of work that we have. We are training really well right from the beginning of an employee's time on your team and that ongoing training.
[00:20:26] And then we're giving them the tools that they need to be successful. And frankly, the biggest thing I think out of all of this is just giving them the time, giving them the. in the autonomy to get that work done. So the fifth thing that we need to do as leaders to ensure we have an open, safe, and um, productive work environment is prioritizing and encouraging time off and wellbeing.
[00:20:51] So, . I know that it can be really easy for us to say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do some yoga at lunch. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take some, take that vacation. Take those days off. But then we message our team after hours. We send a text message at 10 o'clock because you had an idea or there's some escalation that's happened, right?
[00:21:12] We need to make sure that we are keeping work conversations as much as we can during work hours. , unless you are an open heart surgeon, unless you are a firefighter or an e m s, you know, frontline sort of, um, emergency responder, I really encourage you to think through if the message that you are sending, the escalation that you are sending, does that.
[00:21:41] Really need to be solved right now at 10 o'clock at night. Does it, does it really need to be solved on a Saturday afternoon? Now, again, depending on the world that you live in, the, the, the type of business that, that you're in, maybe, maybe that's, maybe that's the right thing. But I would think about how do we make sure that we're not.
[00:22:01] Making our employees be on and constantly on for work and thinking about work and wondering, you know, if something's gonna come up 24 7. Cuz again, that's a really great way that toxicity and burnout creeps into our workplace. So I encourage you to keep. Work conversations to work out hours. I mean, you need to have boundaries around this as well for yourself, for your own sanity, for your for, for your own productivity.
[00:22:28] But we also want that for our team as well. Now if you, for whatever reason, you're like, you know, I'm gonna send an email or I'm gonna send messages after hours, because that's your version of flexibility. Maybe, maybe you, um, you. Cut out of work a little bit early because you have, um, you're picking up your kid from school or something like that.
[00:22:49] So then you get back online later on at night and crank out some emails at night. That's totally fine. That's totally cool. Um, if that works for you. But you need to explain that to your team. I actually had a manager who did this early on in my career. She, um, would send emails after dinner and on Sundays, and so that made me feel like I needed to do the same thing or that I needed to respond.
[00:23:13] And so finally she took me aside at one point and just said, Nicole, I, I leave here. or like at three o'clock, because I go pick up my son every day from school, and then I wanna spend really, really focused present time with him, you know, through dinner time. And then after, after dinner, then, you know, I hop back on on my laptop and I, you know, kind of crank through some emails, which works for me.
[00:23:38] Um, same thing on the weekends, I guess. She, she shared that like he would go down for a nap or he had some activity on a Sunday afternoon that it was a really great way for her to then, , get some, get some work done. So it's, IM important for you to just share, like, Hey, just because I'm sending you an email right now doesn't mean that I'm expecting you to respond.
[00:23:56] Um, you know, maybe sending text messages is not the best way to communicate with your team. Or maybe you say, I might send you a Slack message or an instant message, but that doesn't mean that I need you to respond. If I need you to respond, I'll contact you in this way if, if it's truly an emergency. So maybe you get together with your team and.
[00:24:15] And you decide what those rules of engagement are for everyone on how, how you're going to. Escalate some things or how, how are you know if there's a crisis or an emergency of some kind? You know, maybe you work out a deal around, Hey, I'm gonna contact you this way, but only in an emergency. Otherwise, if you see a message from me, know that you don't have to respond until you know the next time you are, you know, you are during your working hours.
[00:24:45] So I had a leader one time, um, say something to the effect that, well, I don't, I'm not gonna say that to my team. I'm not gonna tell my team that, um, they don't have to respond because, you know, they should be mature enough just to know that okay, fine. should your, your senior leaders be mature enough to know that maybe, but that the tone in which she said it and some other things that she shared in that moment made me believe that, hmm, maybe she's part of the problem of the toxic work environment that she was describing.
[00:25:17] Um, again, if we go back to a couple of points ago, on our second point in communicating clearly and often and in our first point where you're setting expectations that. . You know, if you're, if this is how you wanna operate, you wanna operate in this way that, you know it works for you to send messages off at midnight, that's totally fine.
[00:25:33] But once again, have a con have an adult conversation with your employees about, again, your expectations around, around that. . Um, and then actually when we're talking about prioritizing time off and wellbeing and things like that, you have to actually give people a time off , right? We have to actually, um, give them that space and give them that safety that they can take time, the time off and the wheels are not gonna go, are not gonna fall off.
[00:25:59] So this goes back to our point around make sure that we're training people, we're cross-training, we're having. Team meeting so people know what's going on. So if someone is off on vacation, they can truly be off and they don't have to check in because either somebody else is aware of what's going on and they can pick up an issue, should it, should it arise.
[00:26:19] or again, we just, you, we just set the expectations that, hey, anytime somebody's off, they are off. We do not contact them. There is absolutely nothing in this business that needs to be escalated to this person when they are on vacation or again, we set expectations around if this happens or this happens, I will contact you.
[00:26:40] Otherwise I'm not contacting. Take your email off your phone, take your slack off your phone because it is really important to have a full, clean rest period, rest time, whatever that looks like in order for people to really come back refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to hop back into work. So finally we are at our last point on how to prevent a toxic work environment in within your organization.
[00:27:07] And this last point is that you also need to model all of these behaviors and actions yourself. So you need to make sure that you are managing up with your leadership team and ensuring that you're getting those clear expectations from them, that you're getting the communication that you need from them, and that you are advocat.
[00:27:26] For your team, right? Everything kind of funnels up through you. And if, and if your team hasn't asked, they, we need extra headcount, we need additional budget for, for tools or something like that, you need to be. That's the role that you need to be playing, right? As that advocate, as that advocate for your team.
[00:27:45] You also need to be demonstrating that you are going to collaborate with other departments and your leadership team and your peers as well. If your team hears you, you know, shit, talking another team or, or badmouthing a or something like that, like teams feel that even if you. Say that that's what's happening.
[00:28:06] Your team will feel that tension and feel that, um, that competition with each other. I have a client I'm working with right now and, and they're really being super intentional about building a really positive collaborative relationship with, um, with their team member, with, um, some of their peers and a, and a peer team that they have to collaborate often with because, The relationship has been strained for a while.
[00:28:33] And, uh, my client said something to me about, you know, well, you know, my director on my team and the director on the other team, like, they're not getting along. And I'm, and my question was, why do you think that is? Or what do you think is going on there? And they're like, well, you know, , well, myself and their boss don't get it all.
[00:28:49] Get along like, okay, well again, even if you don't say anything, even if you're not spilling the tea or whatever about, about whatever conflict y'all are in, people can feel that tension. People can really feel that trickling down for within that team. So again, this all starts with you. So making sure that if you are expecting collaboration amongst teams and amongst departments, then you also need to be demonstrating that as well.
[00:29:13] And. , you need to be taking clean rest and clean time off. You need to be using your P t o. I remember whenever, um, the pandemic first hit, what we were seeing was that people weren't taking their vacation time. They were taking their p t o because people are like, well, I have nowhere to go. I got nothing to do, so why waste?
[00:29:33] You know, why waste my vacation time? . But the, the, the other side to that was that, again, our teams were burning out, they were exhausted. They all, everyone just needed a break, right? If you can remember back to those early days of the Pan Pandemic, we just, we all still need a break, right? But particularly at that time, people just really, really needed to be able to kind of.
[00:29:55] um, decompress and relax after kind of the chaos that, that we were experiencing at that particular time. And so what I told, um, one of the leaders of the, of the organization I was with at the time, I was like, you need to take a day or two or a week or whatever. And I was like, and make a big stink about it.
[00:30:13] you know, send out a note, be really big about it. Hey, I'm taking a couple days off for my mental health. You know, I need, I need some rest and, and rejuvenation time with my family. I'm gonna be completely out of pocket. I know you all are going, you know, can handle anything that comes the way, comes your way.
[00:30:31] Um, while I'm out, of course, if there's an e. Here's, um, here's how to get ahold of me. I know as a leader that you wanna say that, oh, well, you know, I don't wanna go on vacation and feel like my team has to fend for themselves, that they, you know, that I'm not gonna be supportive of them. That I'm just, you know, leaving them high and dry.
[00:30:52] that's not true, right? You're not leaving them high and dry. If you've set clear expectations, if you've communicated clearly, if people know, if people have been cross-trained, you know, people can handle things like it's, you know, if you have really empowered your team to be successful, they will. They will rise to the occasion, I promise.
[00:31:11] But if you like, continue to put out this message that, you know, I'm available, should anything go wrong, you know, blah, blah, blah. That's sending them a message that they can't fully step away, that they don't wanna leave the team high and dry if they go on vacation because we, again, that's probably not true.
[00:31:27] It's probably whatever, however long people are taking, taking time off, it's highly unlikely that there is something that only they can solve or only they can fix. There might be a couple of things, right, and again, Set those expectations and be really clear about that. But otherwise, if you can demonstrate that, hey, I trust you, you team can totally handle anything that's happened.
[00:31:53] I've cross-trained all of you. You all know. where all the information is, or you know who my backup is going to be. You'll all be fine. You've got this, I totally know that you've got this. If they see that and you empower them, they are more apt to be able to again, rise to the occasion and also take that clean rest and that clean time off, um, when it comes time for them to taking time off as well.
[00:32:17] So again, . If you want to, um, ensure that you don't have a toxic work environment in your organization, you wanna prevent that. You have to be modeling all of these behaviors and actions yourself. So, as a recap, here are the six ways that you can prevent a toxic workplace as a leader. One, you're gonna set clear expectations and hold people accountable to that, the good and the bad.
[00:32:41] You're going to communicate clearly, often, and transparently, and you're gonna have regular one-on-ones and regular team meetings where you create that safe and open environment for people to share ideas and have. You're gonna encourage collaboration instead of competition. You're gonna give people the resources that they need to be successful, including the time to get their work done.
[00:33:06] And you're gonna prioritize and encourage time off and wellbeing. And once again, you're gonna do all of these things yourself. You're gonna walk this walk. and you are going to model this behavior for everyone else as well. So by doing all of these things, you will create a positive, open, and psychologically safe environment for everyone to come to work and do their best, because I truly believe that is what people want to do.
[00:33:32] People want to come to work and do well, but that is hard to do in a toxic work environment. And as leaders, we play the biggest role in creating that culture. So thank you for joining me here today, and if you like this content, head over to my website in a cold case speaks.com/newsletter and sign up for my weekly newsletter where I share even more valuable information like this, including being the first to know when new podcast episodes drop, where I'm speaking at next and other, um, and other really critical, important information for you to succeed in your.
[00:34:08] So I will see you over there, and until next time, remember, your career deserves an upgrade.
