For Malia, it was clear she couldn’t and wouldn’t succeed working at a company that tolerated bullies like Frank. It was as if she had become the problem for her company, and people seemed to accept how Frank was and gave him a wide berth. She was told she “needed to learn to get along” with others. In her performance review, her typically high ratings suffered. The company’s HR team didn’t put much effort into reprimanding Frank, but Malia felt the effects anyway. After she came forward, the predictions came true. It was a hard decision and it took its toll on her mental and physical well-being. They told her to keep delivering results and ignore Frank as best she could.Īfter more than a year of putting up with his behavior and despite being told it would be “career suicide,” Malia finally felt she had to report Frank via the formal dispute process - not just for herself, but for the other women and diverse talent around her. Malia couldn’t understand why everyone looked the other way, and their advice also shocked her. When Malia reached out to other senior women at the company for advice, she learned that Frank had a history of infractions against women and that HR and leadership were well aware of his behavior. In fact, Frank often spoke about how he understood the games of office politics and played them better than everyone else around him. Frank made it clear that Malia was “lucky to be working” with him and told her that since he sat on the compensation council, he had the power to determine her next career move and her pay. He would yell and berate the staff, make disparaging comments about people of color, and treated Malia as if she was his subordinate, not his equal. Within weeks, it became clear to Malia that Frank was a bully. She was paired with another account executive at the same level, Frank,* who was white and a decade older. Malia,* whom Deepa interviewed for her recent book, had been a senior leader for 10 years and was one of the only senior women of color at her firm when the executive team asked her to take responsibility for one of the largest accounts in the company’s portfolio. Women of Color Are Saying “Enough Is Enough” In the midst of the fight for talent, at a time when the link between diversity and better business outcomes is finally being understood and when external stakeholders are demanding accountability on diversity metrics, company leaders must look carefully at the wide-ranging impacts of tolerating and rewarding high-performing bullies at the expense of culture, particularly as they impact women of color. companies almost $50 billion per year, and toxic culture was the single biggest predictor of attrition during the first six months of the Great Resignation. Research has shown that toxic cultures cost U.S.
These individuals and the cultures that enable them are key factors driving women of color to leave their workplaces. These “toxic rock stars” can ruin the workplace experience for most employees, but they’re particularly harmful to women of color. Most of us have known a high performer who is a bully at work or a leader who delivers results but creates a toxic environment.
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