Avoid Toxic Personalities at Work with Pre-Employment Tests
What is an Example of a Toxic Person at Work?
Examples of toxic personalities at work include negative individuals who complain constantly, gossip or bully others, undermine teammates, have angry outbursts, refuse accountability, or act entitled and superior.
Bringing a toxic employee into an organization can severely hurt morale, collaboration, engagement, and performance. According to Harvard Business Review, toxic personalities at work can result in 38% decreased work quality and 66% decreased work performance.
These statistics clearly illustrate the importance of avoiding toxic personalities in the workplace. It’s often said that prevention is better than cure, and this is especially true when it comes to dealing with toxic employees.
By taking proactive measures to avoid hiring toxic people in the first place, companies can protect themselves from the damaging effects they can have on the teams they work with.
What is a Toxic Work Personality?
Toxic personalities at work are characterized by a combination of negative traits and behaviors that can have a detrimental effect on the workplace. Some common characteristics include:
Narcissism
Narcissists have an inflated ego and sense of self-importance while lacking empathy and consideration for others. Their grandiose view of themselves leads to arrogance, domineering attitudes, and hostility when challenged or contradicted.
“Narcissistic leaders, like carriers of a virus, infect the organizational culture and cause top performing employees to look for a quick exit, according to a study from the University of California.
Passive-Aggression
Passive-aggressive employees express frustration through indirect means like procrastination, stubbornness, and intentional inefficiency to undermine team objectives. Their covert obstructionism and denial of responsibility sabotages progress.
Manipulation
Toxic manipulators exploit coworkers and situations to serve their self-interests. They shame or play mind games to gain power and notoriety at the expense of others. Manipulation destroys trust, cooperation, and integrity and dismantles high-performing teams.
Drama-Seeking
Toxic drama-seekers constantly stir conflict to gain attention and feed their victim mentality. They gossip, exacerbate disagreements, and bully to satisfy their boredom and insecurity through the chaos they incite.
Gossiping and Spreading Rumors
Toxic individuals may engage in spreading gossip and rumors to manipulate others or gain control. This behavior can damage trust within teams and create an overarching environment of distrust and suspicion.
Negativity and Complaining
Toxic individuals often have a pessimistic outlook and a tendency to complain excessively. They focus solely on problems rather than solutions. Complainers constantly criticize others, the company, or their circumstances, creating a negative atmosphere that drains the energy of those around them.
Blaming
Toxic individuals avoid taking responsibility for their actions and frequently blame others or external factors for their mistakes. This lack of accountability erodes team cohesion and hinders problem-solving efforts.
The High Cost of Toxic Personalities at Work
The presence of toxic personalities at work can have a significant impact on your company, affecting these specific areas:
- Productivity: Toxic behaviors directly distract, slow, and obstruct coworkers from efficiently performing tasks. Drama and complaints waste hours of productive time each week that would be better spenton value-adding work. A study shows that toxic behavior can significantly damage workplace team performance.
- Profitability: Because toxic employees hamper productivity, creativity, and collaboration, they limit the organization’s ability to operate efficiently and capture new opportunities. Their net effect depresses revenue potential.
- Engagement: Toxic workers corrode team morale, fulfillment, loyalty, and motivation. Their presence fosters negativity, frustration, and disengagement among previously devoted, upbeat employees.
- Employee Retention: Toxic work environments contribute to high employee turnover as talented individuals seek more positive and supportive workplaces. This results in the loss of valuable skills and institutional knowledge.
Why Interviews Alone Fail to Detect Toxic Personalities When Hiring
Standard interviews rely heavily on first impressions rather than objective facts about dangerous behavioral flaws. Although interviews are an essential part of the hiring process, they cannot provide a complete picture of the candidate’s personality. In many cases, these candidates consider the interview a performance and present themselves in a favorable light, even if they have toxic traits.
Many toxic candidates have excellent communication skills, which masks their toxic behavior. It’s quite common for the interviewer to miss identifying these toxic traits because of the candidate performance factor, leading to the hiring of a toxic applicant candidate.
Without the right testing, these “wolves in sheep’s clothing” easily infiltrate organizations only to reveal their true disruptive colors much later.
With these reasons in mind, it’s essential to use data-driven tools and methods, such as pre-employment tests, to identify toxic personalities early in your hiring process.
How Pre-employment Tests Avoid Toxic Personalities at Work
Evidence-based pre-employment exams prevent toxic candidates from manipulating the hiring process by directly testing for counterproductive behavioral traits. Some of these assessments include:
Personality Tests
Personality assessments, such as our Elite Personality Tests, provide an impartial analysis of candidates’ tendencies, including emotional regulation, integrity, teamwork, dealing with pressure, and conflict resolution.
Screening for integrity also exposes those prone to toxic habits like gossiping, blaming others, harboring grudges, withholding information, and sabotaging team goals to prioritize self-interest.
Emotional Intelligence Tests
Emotional intelligence (EQ) tests assess candidates’ ability to comprehend social dynamics and respond appropriately in interpersonal interactions. Toxic employees often lack essential EQ skills, including:
- Self-awareness: The inability to recognize the impact of one’s behavior on others.
- Self-regulation: Difficulty managing destructive emotional impulses.
- Empathy: Inability to understand and consider others’ perspectives.
- Conflict resolution: Inability to resolve conflicts constructively.
Additionally, low EQ scores can indicate toxic tendencies such as drama-seeking, manipulation, blame-shifting, chronic complaining, and narcissism. EQ testing serves as a safeguard against hiring people who lack maturity, sensitivity, and people skills into managerial roles.
By assessing EQ, organizations can better identify candidates who possess the emotional intelligence necessary for positive workplace relationships and a healthy work environment.
Cognitive Assessments
General mental ability exams assess important aspects of cognitive functioning, such as critical thinking, rational judgment, and problem-solving skills. Toxic personalities, on the other hand, often exhibit inflexible thinking patterns, and a tendency to make rash decisions that can heighten interpersonal conflicts.
Cognitive tests can be a great complement to the personality tests that evaluate a tendency to be toxic.
Conclusion
A company is only as strong as its employees, and building a team of individuals who will contribute positively to the company’s growth and success takes effort.
By integrating validated personality and emotional intelligence assessments into the hiring process, companies gain a powerful tool to identify and avoid toxic personalities at work. This proactive approach doesn’t just make for a happier workplace; it also boosts productivity and success across the board.
Interested in seeing how pre-employment assessments can help you avoid hiring the next George Costanza, Draco Malfoy, or Cruella de Vil? Try a free sample test today!