Fixing a Toxic Team: How New Managers Can Break Old Patterns

You walk in on the first day at a new job. Whether it’s your first leadership role or not, if something’s off, it’s clear. The vibe isn’t right. People are guarded. Meetings feel like a charade. The veteran employees are cynical and skeptical, and in your head, you’re asking: Is this a rough start, or did I inherit a broken system?

To be honest, it’s probably a little of both. And here's what you need to know: it can get better. Just not the way most managers try to fix it.

The Numbers? Hard to Ignore

Let's call a spade a spade. You just walked into a toxic workplace, or at least a toxic team. According to a 2023 SHRM report, toxic workplace culture was the leading reason employees quit their jobs, costing American businesses $223 billion in turnover. A 2025 Monster poll found that 80% of workers say they're working in a toxic environment. That's up 13 points from the year before, and is also a pretty scary majority.

This isn’t a blip on the record. It’s a slow-moving disaster that most organizations still aren't taking seriously, but it’s eating at workplace culture from the inside out.

And the managers who inherit these teams — the ones who didn't cause the damage — are the ones expected to clean it up. If that's you right now, you're not imagining it. And you're not alone. The silver lining is: you can fix it.

But First… Don’t. Fix. Anything.

The most common mistake I see new managers make: they try to fix the culture before they understand it. They walk in with good intentions, try to implement changes quickly, but then they wonder why the whole team is resisting.

Trust doesn't erode overnight. Leadership consultants at Boundless put it well — toxic teams become toxic through long periods of inconsistency, unclear expectations, and poor leadership habits, typically developed over years. It’s often from various generations of leadership who are now long gone. You cannot undo that eroded trust with one all-hands meeting, free lunch, and a new set of team norms on a slide deck.

Before you try to change anything, listen. Michael D. Watkins at IMD Business School says the first step when inheriting a team is a thorough assessment — one-on-ones, team meetings, and conversations with key stakeholders — not to gather ammunition, but to understand what happened, what isn’t working, and what people need.

In those early 1:1s, ask more than you tell. What's working? What gets in the way of your best work? What are the pain points in your SOPs? What would need to change for you to actually trust this team and this leadership?

Frankly, you'll hear things that are uncomfortable. You'll hear things about your predecessor, about current leadership, about the organization. Don't agree, don't defend, don’t try to actively problem-solve — just listen. That alone will make you different from what came before. The best leaders are people-focused, not problem-focused. Make sure your new team trusts you before you start disrupting their everyday.

Trust Comes First. Everything Else Comes Second.

This is where managers get impatient. They want to demonstrate they're capable, so they make moves — new processes, restructuring, accountability frameworks. All of that can be good… eventually. But if your team doesn't trust you yet, none of it will land the way you're hoping. It’s likely to make problems worse.

Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson has spent decades researching what makes teams work, and her conclusion keeps coming back to one thing: psychological safety. She defines it as "a team climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect in which people are comfortable being themselves." Google's Project Aristotle research found it's the single biggest predictor of team effectiveness — more than talent, more than structure, more than anything else.

Here's the part that matters most when you're working with a team that's been burned or has been subject to toxic leadership: psychological safety is destroyed much faster than it's built. One moment of punishing someone for speaking up can erase months of goodwill. In a team that already has scar tissue, the margin for error is even smaller.

So what does that look like in practice?

●      Make it clear that it’s okay to not know. Ask for their expertise. Admit when you're figuring something out. It signals that honesty is safe here, and that you value their experience and expertise.

●      Do what you say you'll do. Especially small things, and from the start.

●      React appropriately to criticism and concerns. The first time someone brings you a problem, you're setting the template for every conversation that follows. Make those first responses count.

●      Let honesty be uncomfortable without making it costly. No one is punished for highlighting an issue. Everyone is heard, regardless of consequence, whether their feedback is acted upon or not.

This isn't soft leadership. This is the infrastructure everything else sits on — including trust.

Show What "Good" Actually Looks Like

Toxic teams live in ambiguity. Shifting expectations. Standards applied inconsistently. People stop trying when they can't tell what success looks like — or worse, when they've learned that the finish line and goal posts move regardless of what they do.

Culture consultant Aga Bajer said it best, “Many toxic teams lack clarity and alignment around common goals and values.”

As a new manager, you have a window — a short one — to rebuild that clarity. Not by handing people a list, but by building it with them. What does this team exist to do? What does good work look like? What does great work look like? How do we treat each other when things get hard?

Get those answers into writing, come back to it regularly, and hold yourself to it as visibly as you hold anyone else on the team.

Culture doesn't erode from the top down. It erodes from the edges — the small things left unaddressed, the moments where it was easier to look away. What you tolerate, you encourage.

You Can't Save Everyone, and That's Okay

Here's the hard truth. Some people on a toxic team are wounded — guarded, burned out, and burned from previous leaders — but ultimately willing to reengage if conditions change. Others adapt to the dysfunction and make it their identity. Those are very different people, and they need very different responses from their leaders. 

Put your energy toward the people who are showing up, albeit imperfectly. Name what you see, strengths, and weaknesses. Recognize the early signals of engagement. If someone is actively undermining the team — spreading cynicism, working against the changes you're building together — address it directly, document it, and don't let their behavior set the tone for everyone else

Be honest with yourself about the timeline. In teams with real baggage, rebuilding trust is a slow process. It requires consistent behavior over time — not a reset moment, not a retreat, not a single reorganization. Know that this takes months, not weeks, and plan accordingly.

What New Managers Tend to Get Wrong

A few patterns I see consistently: 

●      Coming on too strong. Big structural changes before trust is built read as aggression, not vision. Slow down.

●      Optimizing for likability. Being liked feels good. Being consistent and leading teams toward one vision is what actually earns respect in a team that's been let down before.

●      Avoiding hard conversations. Every issue you leave unaddressed becomes an implicit standard. Your silence communicates something — make sure it's what you mean.

●      Treating culture like a project. There's no finish line; culture is the sum of what happens every day, and it's being shaped whether you're paying attention or not.

The Process Is Worth It

Let me be honest: turning around a toxic team is slow, tough, sometimes thankless, and occasionally demoralizing. There will be weeks where it feels like nothing is working.

But there's also a moment — and you'll recognize it when it comes — when someone brings you a real problem instead of hiding it. When a conversation gets honest. When a person who was checked out starts to show up again. Those moments are the product of every small, consistent choice you made before it.

You didn't create the mess. But you're in a position to build something that actually works from those ashes. That's not a burden — it's an opportunity.

Take it.

I’m a leadership coach who meets my clients where they are. If you're navigating a team turnaround and want a thought partner, let's connect. If you’re an organization interested in building resilient, non-toxic leadership, I’m here to help you, too. Effective leadership should be people-focused before problem-focused.