During a coaching conversation not long ago, someone asked me: “How do I know if the person I work for is actually toxic — or if I’m just being too sensitive?”
It’s a fair question. And an important one. Because a toxic leader doesn’t always show up loud and obvious. Sometimes they’re charming in the right rooms and destructive everywhere else. Sometimes the warning signs are right in front of you — you just haven’t had language for them yet.
After 20+ years in executive roles and coaching hundreds of founders and leaders, I’ve seen the patterns clearly. Here are seven warning signs that you’re working for a toxic leader.
Research from Psychology Today confirms that toxic leaders use power to command and control, prioritizing their own needs over the team’s — and the patterns are more common than most organizations want to admit.
1. They Create a Culture of Fear, Not Accountability
There’s a critical difference between a leader who holds people accountable and a toxic leader who rules through fear. Accountability says, “Here’s what we agreed on — I expect it done.” Fear says, “Do it or else.”
In a fear-based environment, people stop taking risks. They stop speaking up. They stop flagging problems early because they’re more afraid of the reaction than the problem itself. Ideas die in the hallway. Mistakes get hidden instead of fixed. And the best people — the ones with options — start quietly looking for the exit.
As I write in Build Kickass Teams: high performers want feedback. They want to know where they stand. The only people who fear accountability are those coasting under the radar. If your whole team is walking on eggshells, the problem isn’t the team.
2. They Take Credit and Assign Blame
A toxic leader leverages the people around them to build their own personal brand. They take your work, your team’s work, and present it as their own — handling the call alone even though you did all the prep, submitting the group project with last-minute “re-works,” receiving public recognition for wins that weren’t theirs.
Flip it around and the same leader is quick to assign blame when things go wrong. Accountability flows down. Credit flows up. That’s not leadership — that’s extraction.
Great leaders do the opposite. They give credit publicly and take accountability personally. They build people up in front of others and handle correction privately. If your leader does the reverse, pay attention.
3. They Gossip — And That Means They’re Gossiping About You
This one is simple but underestimated: if your leader gossips with you, they are gossiping about you.
A toxic leader uses gossip to build alliances, undermine rivals, and control narratives. They’ll pull you aside to whisper about a colleague — and it feels like trust. It isn’t. It’s a pattern. And when your name is on the other side of a conversation, the same thing is happening.
In Build Kickass Teams, I write about how toxic people rarely make a scene publicly. They smile in meetings, cc you on emails, and sometimes even hit their numbers. But behind the scenes, they’re gossiping, undermining, and poisoning belief. The result is slow cultural rot — the kind that’s hard to pinpoint until you’ve already lost your best people.
4. They Show Zero Empathy When It Counts
You can usually identify a toxic leader by how they respond when someone on the team has a real personal emergency. A sick child. A family crisis. A genuinely hard week.
A great leader responds with humanity first. A toxic leader responds with suspicion, frustration, or punishment. They talk about your performance behind your back. They make you feel like an inconvenience for being human.
In Lead With Empathy, I write that empathy isn’t weakness — it’s what builds connected, resilient teams. Leaders who can’t extend basic humanity when it matters don’t just lose good people. They create cultures where no one ever brings their real self to work, and performance suffers for it.
5. They Never Apologize — Or Apologize Badly
Toxic leaders almost never apologize. And when they do, it’s performative — a “yes, but” that shifts blame back to you before the sentence is finished, or an apology delivered without eye contact, without real listening, without any actual acknowledgment of impact.
This matters beyond just manners. Leaders set the standard for what’s acceptable on the team. When a leader can’t model accountability — can’t say “I was wrong, here’s what I’ll do differently” — they’re telling everyone around them that accountability only flows downward. That double standard kills trust faster than almost anything else.
6. They’re Unclear, Inconsistent, or Simply Absent
Not every toxic leader is loud and aggressive. Some toxic leaders are checked out. They don’t set clear expectations. They’re inconsistent — one rule for some, different rules for others. They disappear when decisions need to be made and reappear to take credit when things go well.
In Build Kickass Teams, I write about the two dangerous extremes in leadership: impulsiveness and paralysis. Both break trust. A leader who delays necessary decisions, avoids hard conversations, and refuses to engage with real problems isn’t being careful — they’re being negligent. And the team pays the price.
Lack of clarity isn’t neutral. It creates anxiety, miscommunication, and a team that’s constantly guessing — which eventually becomes a team that stops trying.
7. The Best People Are Always Leaving
This is often the clearest signal of all. If your organization has a revolving door — especially among your strongest performers — something is wrong at the top.
High performers don’t leave good cultures. They leave toxic leaders. They leave environments where their effort isn’t recognized, their ideas are dismissed, and their standards are undermined by someone above them who can’t be held accountable.
What makes this particularly dangerous is that the toxic leader often survives the departures. They explain them away. They blame the people who left. And the cycle continues — until the only people who remain are the ones with nowhere else to go.
What to Do If You Recognize These Signs
First, trust what you’re seeing. A lot of people in toxic environments second-guess themselves — wondering if they’re being too sensitive, too negative, or not resilient enough. The fact that you’re asking the question usually means the answer is already obvious.
Second, document. If you’re in a situation where you need to escalate or protect yourself, having specific examples matters more than general feelings.
Third, make a decision with clear eyes. You can’t always fix a toxic leader from below. Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do for your career — and for yourself — is to find a place where leadership actually earns your best work.
And if you’re a leader reading this looking to make sure none of these patterns show up in your own team, start with how to have the difficult conversations that healthy leadership requires — or book a free fit call with Pete and let’s build something better.