Sital Ruparelia

Ladies, what if…..

You were in a toxic relationship with a man who didn’t treat you particularly well.  He had little awareness about your needs, didn’t hold a lot of respect for you in private and often was quite disrespectful of you in public. And as a result you suffered a dip in confidence and constantly wished you could just get back to being your old self again.

Now tell me, if you were in this situation, what would your girlfriends be telling you?

“Walk away…” they’d say,

“…you deserve much better ……”

For a while, you’d probably create all sorts of excuses for him – it’s not his fault, he’s having problems at work, he’s got financial problems, he doesn’t mean it…..and oh, maybe I’m exaggerating and things aren’t quite that bad.

In time, your girlfriends would convince you that the more you accepted and tolerated the situation, the worse things would get. The situation would become toxic and affect your health, relationships, career and self confidence.

So you either need to:

a) Tackle him and the situation or
b) Leave him

Sounds sensible right?

But the 2 things that will stop you are:

i) Your self-esteem
ii) Knowing what/how to deal with him and the situation

I think the very same things happen when you have a toxic relationship with your employer.

When your needs are not being met at work for a length of time or it feels like you’re compromising your values or maybe putting your dreams on hold longer that you’d like to – it’s toxic. In addition to effecting your work life - your health, your relationships and your confidence get hit too.

But to change things you need to be willing to i) Develop a strong self-respect and ii) know what actions to take

Here are 5 steps that will help:

1. Be clear about the value you bring to your employer

Without a strong sense of self-esteem, it’s impossible to be successful in achieving a change in your personal relationships.

The same applies to your career: with low self-esteem you can’t achieve change and improvements.

So get focused on identifying your unique talents, get clear about the commercial value you have created for your employers and clients to date. Dig out those testimonials, glowing feedback and appraisals to get back your self-belief.

All of this helps you start to build a healthy self-respect which in turn gives you the courage to resolve your situation instead of putting up with something that is grinding at you.

2. Get clear about your needs

What is the work you really want to do? What are the personal and professional values that you never ever want to compromise on? What are the skills and strengths you want to utilise on a day-to-day basis?

What are your financial needs? What’s the lifestyle you want?

3. Identify what’s missing

Your partner can’t change unless you and they both know what the issue is.

Similarly, in a toxic employee-employer relationship, you need to know which of your needs are not being met before seeking to make changes.

If not, you can very easily make an impulsive decision that takes you ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire.‘

4. Engage in a dialogue

Whatever the problem – the minute you engage in constructive conversations about how to resolve the problem, you start making progress.

Do it without anger or judgement and you’ll learn how you can change to make the situation better.  Be willing and open minded to changing yourself first and you’ll find the other party/employer being open to compromises. Not always, but probably more often than people think.

Will such an open dialogue be uncomfortable?

Yes. But then again, most things we strive for in life require us to feel uncomfortable at some point.

Will such a dialogue always work?

No.  And that’s why you must always have options….

5. Have options

Let’s imagine that you’re feeling a little depressed being stuck in that toxic relationship with your partner.

And then suddenly one day you get a compliment from a male friend about your new hairstyle. Then the next day a handsome man on the train flashes a smile at you.

Now how do you feel? Much better about yourself I bet.

That’s because when you’re stuck, fleeting moments like this make you realise that you may have a future beyond your current situation, that the outside world places a value on you. And that in turn gives you the confidence to stand up for yourself to instigate a change in your partner – or make the decision to walk away with your head held high.

The exact same thing happens in your career when you feel stuck. A random call from a head hunter to discuss a potential position makes your heart flutter and gives you a slight lift for the rest of the day. An email from a friend asking if you’d be interested in a role at their firm gives you a slight spring in your step as you feel you have some options.

But instead of passively waiting for someone else to call or email you, start creating options for yourself by ‘flirting’ with other firms. It doesn’t mean you have to leave your existing employer – it just gives you the confidence and ‘options’ to tackle your situation instead of getting to the stage where things become untenable.

Throughout our lives and careers, we all get stuck in difficult stages of a relationship – both with partners and employers. Most of us will usually tolerate a bad situation for a while until it becomes extremely uncomfortable. But some people never tackle such situations until something “breaks.”  The complete breakdown of trust between them and their employer, the breakdown of personal relationships away from work or a break down in their health from all the stress.

Which forces them to just resign, burn their bridges and leave with no job to go to – and so store up a different set of problems.

Having seen so many people go through this cycle, I’d encourage you not to wait for that breaking point. Instead, take a deep breath and follow the 5 steps above. Whilst it will be a scary and slightly rocky road at times,  it’s nothing like the trouble that you may be storing up for yourself if you don’t take action.

Life’s short so stop tolerating a situation any longer than you really have to. As your girlfriends would say:”You deserve a lot better…”