Adam Robbins Education

The hidden danger of toxic teams: feedback failure.

Toxic cultures don’t always come from cruelty or intent. They often emerge in well-meaning organisations where stress runs high, trust is low, and staff lack the psychological safety to speak up. Leaders may not set out to create toxicity—but it grows nonetheless. And while we often appeal to moral or ethical arguments to fix it—fairness, wellbeing, workload—today I want to try a different approach.

Let’s talk to the leader who doesn’t care.

Let’s talk to the one who’s here for the promotion, the prestige, the “next step.” Not the one who means harm—but the one who measures success in outcomes, reputation, and league tables. What should they care about?

Simple: they should care about feedback.

A Thought Experiment: The Selfish Leader

Let’s be clear—this isn’t about anyone I’ve worked with. This is a fictional leader who wants results, not relationships. They believe high compliance means high performance. They shut down dissent under the guise of “the greater good.” They dominate meetings. Feedback is either ignored or punished.

And at first, it seems to work.

The team does what they’re told. Deadlines are hit. Nobody challenges the plan. But quietly, people start to leave. Energy dips. Progress plateaus. And eventually—unexpectedly—so does the leader’s career.

Why?

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The Hidden Cost of Toxic Culture

It’s not just about turnover or burnout. The real cost of a toxic culture is strategic blindness.

In these cultures, two parallel realities emerge:

• The Leader’s Reality
  They hear no complaints. Just agreement, nodding heads, and surface-level positivity. To them, it feels like everything is going well. They may even pride themselves on being “open to ideas”—but the reality is, no one feels safe enough to offer any.
• The Team’s Reality
  Behind closed doors, the team sees problems everywhere. They whisper about issues. They roll their eyes at decisions. But the risk of speaking up feels too high. So they stay silent—and the leader stays blind.

And that blindness matters. Without feedback, leaders don’t have the information they need to make good decisions. They can’t adapt, refine, or respond. Strategy suffers. Performance stalls. And that shiny next job? It never comes.

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Prestige Requires Feedback

So even if you don’t care about wellbeing…
Even if you don’t care about trust, stress, or staff voice…
You should care about feedback.

Because feedback is your only route to better decisions. And better decisions are your only route to results that actually matter.

Even selfish leaders need feedback to win.
And feedback only flows in cultures where people feel safe enough to speak.

So if you care about your own success, fix your culture.
Not because it’s kind. But because it works.

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Next Steps: Three Practical Tips to Start Rebuilding Trust and Feedback

If this struck a nerve—even a little—here are three simple steps to begin improving trust and re-opening the feedback loop:

1. Reward, don’t retaliate.
   When someone offers a challenge or shares a concern, say “thank you” and show you’ve listened—even if you don’t agree. How you react once will shape whether you ever hear feedback again.
2. Ask specific, not general, questions.
   Don’t just say “any feedback?” Ask things like:
   “What’s one thing in this plan that doesn’t feel right?” or
   “What’s something we’re not seeing that others might?”
3. Model vulnerability.
   Say where you think the weaknesses are. Say what you’ve changed your mind about. Show you’re open to learning, and your team might start to believe they can be, too.