Don’t let a toxic workplace steal your joy! In this episode, Dr. Colleen Saringer, keynote speaker and spillover specialist, joins Rosie Zilinskas to explore the impact of toxic workplaces on mental health. Dr. Saringer breaks down the signs of a toxic environment, from lack of support and bullying to an imbalance between effort and reward. She provides practical strategies for individuals and leaders to identify and address these issues, emphasizing the importance of open communication, setting boundaries, and prioritizing employee well-being. Tune in to learn how to create a healthier and happier work experience for yourself and those around you.
—
Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Breaking The Toxic Workplace Cycle With Dr. Colleen Saringer
Could you imagine an office space where workplace toxicity isn’t just a buzzword or a thing that happens, but instead it’s actually actively something that we all collectively push against? Our guest is here to do just that. Everyone, welcome back. I just want to remind you that I am here to help women in the corporate world thrive in their careers.
Before we go into our episode, I would love to share that my show, No Woman Left Behind, has been selected as one of the Top 40 Personal Development and Self-Improvement Podcasts for Women on the Web. This recognition is being done by FeedSpot. They take the time to review and rank podcasts, and they have slotted us as number 5 out of 40 podcasts that are specific for women, for personal development, and for self-improvement. That is amazing. I am honored and I’m happy that our hard work is making an impact. I would love to ask you to please share the show with your network, with your friends, with your family, and with your coworkers to spread the word. That would be greatly appreciated.
Moving on to this episode, we are going to be talking about how workplace environments not just affect your career, but your mental health as well. To do that, we have our guest, which is Dr. Colleen Saringer. Dr. Colleen is a Spillover Specialist and a workplace culture expert. She will break down the hidden ways toxic practices impact our well-being. She’ll also share practical steps for leaders and employees to take so that they can create a healthier and more supportive work environment. We are going to dive right into this very important conversation.
—
Dr. Colleen, how are you doing?
I’m doing great, how are you doing?
I’m doing really well. Thank you so much for being here on the show. I’m excited to talk to you about one of the most difficult and intricate topics, which is workplace toxicity. You are very familiar because you are a keynote speaker and you are also a Spillover Specialist and we’ll talk about what that means in a little bit. When it comes to workplace toxicity, I just wanted to start with a story.
Toxic Workplace Behaviors: Recognizing Red Flags
I was talking to one of my members, I have a membership, and one of my members was saying that she was responsible for a certain task. It was calling clients. Her boss started doing the same thing without communicating to her that he was going to be calling. It was like reach out to sales calls and things like that. When she approached her boss about, “Next time, could you just let me know what you’re doing?” He’s like, “Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to know that.” He just shut her down and she felt very unseen. She didn’t feel like she was validated at all. He didn’t give her any feedback either way on whether was she doing a good job. Was he just worried about sales and he was just trying to help out? Things like that.
When we were talking about it, the fact that he didn’t even take the time to, number one, tell her what he was doing. Number two, when she finally approached him, he gave her no explanation. I know you come from the family business. This was a small business as well. Let’s talk about your interpretation of that situation. To me, that screams toxicity, where the boss just doesn’t think that he needs to communicate properly, and this was a manager. Let’s start there. I’d love to hear your comments on that.
I was jotting down some notes because my brain sometimes moves so fast in my mouth, they just don’t keep up with each other. I don’t want to take us off track because this may end up being repeated as our conversation goes. When I look at the list, there’s a very specific list. Since I’m a PhD, I tend to lean on the nerdy side of what the research saying.
When I look at the research that points to work-related environmental issues that exacerbate things like anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicides, these are a couple of things. In the scenario that you’re describing, these specific bullets are of what some of these components are lack of social support from supervisors and colleagues. That’s one thing that I was hearing. Tension with a coworker or manager. That’s another thing that I was hearing. The third is an imbalance between effort and reward. I can tease that one out in a little bit, but those are the three that I was hearing.
I don’t want to say this, but there could have been a little bit of bullying that was happening there too, since he wasn’t willing to give any information in return. That’s leveraging that power piece. As soon as you started going through that story, I’m like, these are exactly the components that we have researched that point back to if these things are happening, this is going to exacerbate these challenges and it’s specific to toxic workplace environments. That’s my immediate reaction.
3 Legs Of Mental Health In The Workplace
That’s what I figured, too. We’re going to start talking about the three legs of mental health that you’re very familiar with. You’re a keynote speaker. You talk about this all the time. Let’s start there. Maybe the ones that we identified with the example are part of this. Why don’t we start talking about the three legs of mental health?
I love starting here because, so my focus is the workplace. Obviously, there are tears, like the workplace involves people, but I always like to start with that overarching umbrella of the workplace in regards to mental health. I think it’s really important to call this out, Rosie, that although the pandemic put a spotlight on mental health, my personal opinion is that it was a long overdue spotlight on mental health, specifically in the workplace. Outside of the workplace as well. Mental health in the workplace has always been there.
Think about those things that I just shared with you. Think about your friend’s story or your client’s story. We all have a story similar to that. This has been going on for a long time. Thankfully, again, the pandemic put this long overdue spotlight. As a result of that, more organizations are saying, “We’ve got to lean into mental health at work. We need to do something.” What’s happening is that this gets us to the three legs of the stool. We’re finding organizations do a phenomenal job leaning into things like awareness, which I would classify as what is the suicide hotline.
That’s that now 988 number. That was a change over the last couple of years. Awareness in the sense of what is your medical plan offering you if you are a part of a company’s medical plan. Of course, we’re all very familiar with that Employee Assistance Program or often just labeled an EAP. Doing a great job around just awareness. That’s one leg of that stool. The second that organizations are doing an okay job, I feel like focusing on is prevention in regards to stigma campaigns. Things like it’s okay to not be okay or how do we recognize if someone may be struggling?
That’s fantastic, but that doesn’t hit on then the third part, and this is also just not me saying again is research. If you were to go to anything on the Centers for Disease Control’s website, the CDC, or anything that the US Surgeon General has put out, they’re going to talk about the importance then of the environment. That’s that third leg of the stool, those toxic workplace practices that we seem to put our heads in the sand about. Things like, what type of policies can we put in place so that we don’t have stories that your client shared or that probably you and I have a shared experience with or others?
What type of practices are we going to put in place that help people with job demands and things like that? How are we going to truly eliminate sexual harassment because that’s something that’s still happening? I can again get into that full list. All that to say when I am referring to three legs of the stool, I think we are doing an okay job on awareness and prevention, but we are not doing an okay job on the environment, which is the workplace.
Creating A Positive Work Environment For Women
Our audience obviously are women in the corporate space that are trying to advance in their careers. When we say environment, what are you referring to when we’re talking about environment? It could mean different things to different people.
Thank you for asking that. This is a perfect segue. I teased these up a little bit when we were talking about the example that you gave. The environment is everything that’s going on within the walls of the organization. Some would say culture, some would say climate, and some would then say just general behaviors. It’s all muddied, but again, there are these very specific things that I’m referring to when I talk about the environment and toxic practices.
It’s workplace bullying, sexual harassment, lack of social support from supervisors and colleagues, and tensions with a coworker or a manager. I mentioned this a little bit, but I’ll tease it out. There’s this imbalance between effort and reward. That’s often arising from pressure to work overtime, increasingly demanding work, constant time burdens, and then repeated interruptions.
There is also a perception of low rewards financially. You could say income. I would put income in that bracket. Low rewards socially. My mind goes to the story. Socially means respect. Low rewards organizationally, which would be things like job security and promotions. I have a couple more. There’s a perceived threat of job loss and worries that are related to that threat.
The last two would be low job control, which basically means that there’s a limited ability for me to learn new things, develop skills, and lack of my own opportunity to make decisions. The last one would be high job demands and long working hours, which ultimately then equates to excessive amounts of work and work pressure. Believe it or not, there are a number of long working hours, anything that’s over 45 to 52 weekly hours or more per week. When I’m talking about the environment and toxic practices, that’s what I’m referring to.
That encompasses much of everything that we know is challenging. I don’t want to say that everything is bad in the work environment because there’s a lot of good that’s there. However, I do believe that training and educating people, especially frontline managers and first-time managers is so important to give them the proper training on how to do a performance appraisal, and what to say when people come to you and ask for that promotion. You cannot say yes, because there’s HR and everything has to run through HR.
Top-Down Communication: How Leaders Can Foster Mental Health
There are now a lot of companies that are doing a common annual date for all promotions. You have to wait for the annual date, things like that. The thing that I’m more focused on is that relationship, that imbalance of power and control from the manager. My example is the perfect example because this happened to be the actual owner of the company. It’s a little bit different than the corporation.
However, there still has to be communication and collaboration. You being a Doctor in Psychology and trying to understand this whole mental health, what are some things that the top people in the corporation can do to push it down? A lot of times, they have these great intentions, but the information gets lost in translation because there could be several layers between the top person and the people at the desk. What would your recommendations be for that?
I want to start with just one reaction that I had because I don’t want to dismiss exactly what you said. The workplace is not bad. It’s a place for community. It offers so much. At the end of the day, there are jobs that the work is the work. We’re never going to be able to change the work but we can change the way we’re treating people and that’s the key. I didn’t want to miss that reaction to what you just said because I feel like that flows really well into the answer to your question.
“We're never going to be able to change the work, but we can change the way we're treating people.” – Dr. Colleen Saringer Share on X
This work, changing the environment, and changing what we are expecting of our people cannot happen without leaders. I say that, and I’m going to then also do an and because I don’t want those that are not in leadership to feel like, “Great. What can I do then? I’m just stuck with that.” I think we’ll get into that conversation as well. At the end of the day, if we are going to make a true dent in toxic workplace practices, leaders have to be willing to literally come in with a broom and sweep the house, clean it up, and not succumb to, “That person just makes us a lot of money. Everyone has to pay their dues.”
That’s not okay. We know we can’t just fix that right away. That can’t happen. I get that. All that to say, “What are some of the small things I can do now?” If I am a leader and I talk about this when I’m doing speaking engagements and workshops and things like that, and this, of course, would be size-dependent from a company. Let’s just say you’re mid-size. Maybe you’re 100 people in your organization and you’re a leader. What you can start to do is start with your team, even if that’s a team of 1 or 3.
I think when we think about this work, we get nervous and uncomfortable and think it’s a huge undertaking, which again it is, but we can always start with localization. In the nerdy science world, we would say it’s a pilot. What can we start to do that’s small that we can test? To make it not nerdy, that’s why I think localization is important. That, to me, is again, when we start with our team. If I am a leader, one of the most tried and true methods, Rosie, that never wins the Innovation Award, but it is one of the most important things and one of the most overlooked things is we have to start by talking to our people.
They literally hold the answers to the solutions because if you’re a leader, you don’t have the same lens they do. It just is what it is. It’s a part of life. Just like as a parent or an adult, we have a different lens than those who are younger than us. Good, bad, or indifferent. We cannot dismiss the employee’s voice. That’s the first thing. The second then is the observations. How are your teammates interacting? You’ll also then be able to see some of the practices down the road that you’re going to probably have to solve for later.
That’s maybe where we’ll get the broom and sweep up the house. Without that employee feedback, without those observations, we can’t then start to say, “Employees or team or whatever, what do you think are the top 1, 2, or 3 things that we can put forth as a team?” If we’re going to create it as a team together, that’s how we’re going to get the buy-in for it to be something that can stay and make our teams grow and more productive and all that good stuff. I know what I just shared doesn’t maybe seem like the most impactful, but it is literally the most impactful.
At the end of the day, what you’re able to do is to create, “How are we going to work together? Are we going to do no emails past a certain time? What type of communication are we going to have regularly? Are we going to have regular check-ins? How are we going to collaborate when somebody’s out on leave or on vacation?” If I’m a leader, that’s the first place that I’m going to start. The other one that I always love to share is that I think, again, when I say this to people, I feel like sometimes I get looked at like I have ten heads, but I know that it works, is general kindness.
Saying good morning to your employees, saying thank you. “Be careful today. Drive safe. Have a great weekend.” That one-on-one connection, it’s just being missed. I respect that the workplace is different now. Use the channels you have. If it’s Slack, use it. If it’s Zoom, use it. Find ways to communicate and connect with your people. I feel like most are always looking for these big shiny, what are we going to do? We are missing the most basic practices and opportunities that are right in front of us and cost nothing.
As far as the feedback, one of the things that I never really understood, and I was in the corporate world for over 30 years, and first we have your key performance indicators, and your goals and your objectives, and all that stuff. Even though I’ve only worked for two large corporations, it was the same in both. Whenever the leadership team wanted to deploy some strategic objective, instead of taking the time to survey the people that were at the desk, say, “This is what we’re thinking of doing, this is what we’re going to do.” Almost do like a preview before it was deployed so that you can understand all the questions and all the repercussions.
Inevitably, it was like, “We need to get it by such and such date, deploy it by such and such date.” You always had the spillover of all the questions from our external clients, all the questions from our internal team, and our other internal teams, that were other departments. It was always like a head-scratcher.
Why can’t you just talk to your people, ask them, “Poke holes in this, and let’s talk about it, see how it impacts you. You can give me feedback.” That’s what you were referring to. Feedback from your people at the desk, the people that are face to face with the clients, those are the people that you really need to get the buy-in.
Yes, the boots on the ground. It’s like exactly both of what we’re saying, that example that you just gave. This is not rocket science. It’s just the most important first step. It’s crazy. Many companies overlook it.
The other thing with emails, I always made it a point to say, “Whoever, hope you’re doing well.” I would ask them their questions, say, “Have a good day,” but I personally got so many emails. I ended my career in the corporate world as an executive vice president. There were people emailing me and they were just the questions, like no acknowledgment that I am a human being.
That actually happened to me a few times. As a manager, I’d be walking into my office. This was obviously back in the day when we were all in the office, putting down my coat. I’m in Chicago, so winte. Someone from my team would walk in and ask me a question, and I would always turn to them and I say, “Good morning so-and-so, how are you today?” They would be like, “Sorry.” Recognize me as a person first, and then let’s do business.
I resonate totally with all of that. I’ve had all of those same experiences. Even to this day, any email or text that I send, “I hope you’re doing well. I’m not a robot on the other end.”
Generational Differences In The Workplace
Same. I totally agree. Now, you obviously talked about many different aspects of that environment. One of the things that you talked about is career advancement. One of the things that I always like to address are the Millennials, and then the Gen Zers that are coming up the ranks. It’s so interesting because Gen Xers like myself or even Baby Boomers who are still working have this, to me, jaded perception that the younger people don’t want to work, the younger people are entitled.
Those younger people, whether they’re Millennials or Gen Zers, their core values that are different than our core values. The way I was brought up in the corporate world is very different than what my core values back then were like, “You work hard, you work long. You’re the first one to come in, you’re the last one to leave,” that kind of thing. That was always the work ethic from my parents, it’s like, “You have to work hard.”
The younger people, especially those that are coming out of college, come into the workforce, they don’t want to work 50 hours a week. They want to come in. They want to do their job. They want to do a good job and get recognized for their work, but they want a life outside of the corporation because they saw their parents working really hard. I’m curious about what your perspective is on the difference between the older generations and the younger generations and what you are observing with the younger generations and those boundaries at work.
I’m also a Gen X, Baby Boomer parents. My parents were small business owners. This is just my personal opinion, but also what I’m seeing and hearing, I would say. I also grew up with that teaching that you work hard, you grind. I personally wanted a life. I’m a big boundaries person. I’ll table that for just a second because I think that’s really important. This is one of the things that if you were to take a step back and research and just Google what all of the current generations that are in the workplace have in common, what you will see is there is a common thread that people want to be respected, and they also do want time.
To me, that really says that we have some maybe Baby Boomers or Gen Xers that are just not being fully forthright or honest. I think, again, when you lay out this information, respect and time. To me, that’s also like I want a life. I don’t want to work that hard but I feel like I have to. That’s a me problem, not a workplace problem. I share all that to say that when I think about myself in the workplace, “Was I still working hard?” Yes, but I was expressing my boundaries and not a lot of folks were. I love that those who are coming into the workplace now are trying to establish that early.
That’s what I see. I think that’s a huge win. To me, I think that this is, again, me sitting on both sides, the way that I see this playing out, and I’ll just pull this one from personal experience I’ve always shared with individuals. I think this is something that we have to share with those coming into the workplace, too. Since I was expressing my boundaries in the workplace at a time when it wasn’t really common, I know that probably prevented me from getting the promotions because I wasn’t willing to do the long hours, do the dinners and do that stuff.
I wanted to go home and live a life. I share that to say that some of that may happen and that’s okay because, at the end of the day, not everybody wants to climb the ladder. Not everybody should feel like they have to climb the ladder which takes us back to the importance of just coming into the workplace or whether you’re currently in the workplace. Understand what opportunity do you have for yourself to define your path by knowing what are the paths that are potentially there for me.
Maybe one of those paths is, “I’m going to sit in this seat that I have because this feels great. I’m going to sit here for the next 5 to 10 years because this is all I need,” but ask, is that frowned upon? That’s like a muddied response but lean into these boundaries and ask some of these questions upon entering into the workplace. I think at the end of the day, we all want the same thing. I really do believe that. Some of us are just afraid to say it.
It goes back to asking questions about the workplace culture and talking to people and making sure that before you take the job, you talk to 1 or 2 people within that company because the story that you might get from the leadership team might be different than the story you get, again, from people at the desk actually doing the work.
Yes, 100%. You hit on such a great one. It was something I was thinking about too, as we were preparing for this. If they’re not willing to allow you to talk to somebody who’s currently there, that’s a huge red flag. They should have people in the wings ready to talk to you from all levels to talk about how phenomenal it is to work there.
Career Advancement For Women: Retention And Succession Planning
I’m very excited. As you said, the younger people that are coming in are coming in with the social justice things that they are interested in and the boundaries of not working so many hours. This is what I want to talk about next, that expectation of career advancement and opportunities, especially for women. As you all know, being born a woman already puts you behind the eight ball compared to the male counterpart, but I’ve seen the younger people want that career advancement path.
I was actually doing a little bit of research on retention and succession planning, and corporations right now are having difficulty retaining their best people, and they’re also having a massive problem in succession planning because the good people are leaving for better jobs. They have opportunities and all that stuff.
Corporations are not doing their homework to figure out what are all the stepping stones that their employees need to stay there and be happy and thrive. Obviously, you can’t do everything for everyone, but if employees are seeing that you’re trying to do the right thing, it’s very different than if you just don’t try at all. Let’s talk a little bit about what you’ve noticed in regards to that career advancement.
I just want to make sure, just to reclarify, the picture that you painted, is that what the question is in regards to people leaving and people staying and how they’re navigating advancement?
It’s almost like companies don’t make it a point to have that advancement, what I call the custom career roadmap, the career roadmap within the organization.
Unfortunately, I think that is the case. That is also one of the things that I talk about a lot. It doesn’t matter what your business is. We’ll just make up a pretend business. It’s an IT business. For every role that you have slated, there should be, and I’m making it up, at minimum, three potential directions that you could go to if you want to but also we are willing to help you stretch and grow.
It’s okay for you to try out something totally different. Join another team meeting, just so you can hear. Companies are not doing that enough. If they’re not doing it, then what do I do? As someone who’s coming in, those are the things. If I were going to give just an area of opportunity, those are questions that I would ask, and I would almost just push for. Even if I’m in the organization now, that communication piece is so critical. It’s one that is messy in an organization because we’re afraid to speak, but there are ways that we can make the conversation about the advantage to the organization, not just the advantage to myself, and business cases that we can put together for ourselves.
“Communication is so critical, and it's one that is messy in an organization because we're afraid to speak.” – Dr. Colleen Saringer Share on X
All that to say back to, like I said, I wanted to make sure I understood the initial question, missed opportunity in organizations, just a missed opportunity. We cannot talk about that enough, that necessary career path. Also, I would say even the flip, the comment that you made about succession planning, making sure they weren’t asking people if this is what they want. It has to be that two-way street or else it just doesn’t work.
I was doing a little bit of research on the cost of lost revenue. I think there’s a formula that it’s either one and a half to two times the person’s salary. You take a person who’s just making an average of $50,000. By losing 10 people in one year, you’re already losing $1 million in revenue there because of the salary. It’s just crazy how the math could be so easy to say if you lose ten people in one year, which is especially for large corporations, it’s very easy to do, then you already let $1 million walk out the door.
I love that you went to the turnover piece and the cost of it. This is literally dollars that you were taking out of your bottom line. These are hard dollars. You said it for a large business. Think about a small business. That is literally money out of an owner’s pocket.
Even one person, like I said, using their formula, it’s $100,000 that you let people walk out the door. Here’s the other thing. You’re a keynote speaker. I’m a career coach. It’s so interesting to me that corporations really don’t want to invest money in their people because again they’re worried about the bottom line. Don’t get me wrong. Some pay for a Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree or things like that but they won’t pay for career advancement.
For me, I can come in and help create a custom career roadmap for your people and make sure that it’s all aligned and things. There’s no value from the corporation in that, but it’s okay for people to leave. They’re like, “Let’s start hiring other people.” That’s $100,000 out the door right there. That’s just an average, $50,000 salary, let alone someone that’s making six figures, then you’re already at $250,000 developers with the average VP that walks out the door.
I’m with you. I get so puzzled. The solutions are right in front of us. You just have to flip it. It’s almost like the standard flip the negative to the positive. The positive is to create the path. It really doesn’t take that long to do it. You have to be willing to.
It’s so interesting how this conversation about toxicity workplace really is about retention and, like you said, succession planning and asking people what is it that they want. If corporations, companies, both big and small, just spent a little bit of money on that piece alone, I think they would just have tremendous success on retaining people. I know this is an old statistic, but I remember hearing that if an employee is happy in the corporation, their productivity goes up by 14%. That’s huge when it comes to everybody pushing towards the same way together.
The statistic is still valid. It also brings more people in. When you are hiring, the happy employee is recruiting for you. They’re constantly recruiting for you when you are ready to hire.
Spillover Specialist: Colleen Saringer’s Journey in Psychology
I’m going to transition the conversation a little bit to your story. You’re a Doctor in Psychology and you’re a keynote speaker, a spillover specialist. Tell me a little bit about what a spillover specialist is and how you actually got to be where you are now from your career perspective.
I’m trying to think if I maybe want to start by the Spillover Specialist piece. I’ll say this. My entire career has really been working with organizations, sitting at the table with organizations, large and small, to help them navigate the culture. I like to call it environment because culture is such a big word and there are a lot of ways to break it down, but really to help them alter their environment so that they can better the health of their people.
I had teased us a little bit when we got started, I am the daughter of small business owners. Maybe without really being aware of where I am now and when I think about my backstory with my parents and watching them go through mental health crises, and heart attacks, because of the stress from being a small business owner and then the pressure that they put on themselves. Even if you’re not a business owner, I do believe innately we all want to do a good job when we’re at work.
You put that pressure on yourself because we just want to do a good job. All that to say, again, when I try to put these two things together, the whole Spillover Specialist is that the demands are high, life is high, and you’re putting all this pressure on yourself, that trickles over into things like mental health crises or heart attacks.
We have science that connects it. It really wasn’t super black and white back then, but we have science that now literally points to these things. All that to say, this is the work that I’ve always been doing. I went and got my PhD mid-career. It’s because I want to make an impact in this workplace. I know that we can be better. I know that we can. I know that there are business owners, leaders, and even just boots-on-the-ground people who want to better the workplace.
Anyway, so that’s my overarching path. I think the other thing that I’ll plug in, because I left corporate to come out and do my own thing, get a lean into the speaking piece, I do believe that by way of the stage, we can hopefully help more businesses make an impact rather than just sitting across the table from one. At this point in my career, I need more to be impactful.
Individual Empowerment: Combating Workplace Toxicity
I get that. Thank you for explaining that to us. I want to close the loop on just one final thing before I ask you for the tip that you’re going to leave us with. We talked about a lot of leadership and what the leaders can do but we also talked about what can you do if you’re not a leader and you’re an individual contributor. What is it that we can do as an individual contributor when it comes to that workplace environment?
A couple of things. One, I would say that I think we’re often putting things external. I am a big believer that we do have to start with us. Understanding what are the social cues? What am I receiving? Is this because I had Baby Boomer parents that told me X, Y, and Z? Is it real? Isn’t it real? Some of those little things, which I know sounds silly. I do believe that we have to really start with the internal like, “Let me do a check.”
“We often put things external. We do have to start with us. We always have to be prepared to have the rug pulled out from under us.” – Dr. Colleen Saringer Share on X
The other thing is the boundaries. If I don’t have the ability, because I’m not in a leadership seat to change the toxic workplace environment, then I certainly have the power to push back in a way that I’m most comfortable with. It’s respecting that it may have a negative impact. The boundaries piece is so important.
The third thing that I would say is, and this is me leaning outside of my realm a little bit and maybe a little bit more into yours, Rosie, is you got to always have yourself ready to get that rug pulled out from underneath you, whether it’s because you just cannot handle it or because they say you’re done. This leads into my tip, so I don’t want to tease my tip, but you have to take care of yourself. You have to protect yourself. Be ready, whether it’s working with a coach, whatever the case may be. Invest in you if your company’s not willing to.
It’s so interesting because I always say this to people. When you’re growing up you’re in Little League, you have a coach. You’re in music or dance or volleyball, whatever sport or music or extracurricular activity, you have a coach. All of a sudden, when you go to college and then you go into the workplace, you no longer talk about getting a career coach. Now it’s becoming more common place to get a coach.
There are coaches for everything now, which is amazing, but it’s still not the norm of like, “I have a friend that’s going through a divorce. They hired a divorce coach.” I was like, “That would have been great for me.” Taking care of yourself is really important. From my perspective, like you said, having that career roadmap at the ready, you can’t be figuring out, “I have to get a resume done when people are downsizing constantly in this day and age.” You have to do the work, you have to be promotion-ready is what I call it. With that, let’s talk about your tip then.
My tip is, I said it already, protect yourself, but I’ll take it to this, that inner work, which again, you have to be promotion ready. You have to also know who you are, and what your core values are. What are your boundaries are, and what you’re willing and not willing to stand for in order to be promotion-ready? To me, it starts with you, it ends with you, protect yourself, that’s my final tip.
It’s funny because I always tell people in real estate, the common quote is like, “Location, location.” For me, career advancement, it’s always about preparation because you’re preparing yourself about yourself like how you say things, how you work on yourself, having your bank of stories that you can talk about. In any given situation, I think it’s all promotion-ready. I love your tip of protect yourself. I will just supplement that with get promotion ready. Put all the tactical things in place because you never know when you need to be ready for that next opportunity, and then you’re just caught with your pants down.
I love that you said that.
Addressing Toxicity In Keynote Presentations
Dr. Colleen, thank you so much for all of the wisdom that you have shared with us. I think all of the information that we talked about, it’s not difficult. It’s actually quite simple, but it’s that implementation that you need to do. I should ask you this. When you do your keynote presentations, what do they address when it comes to toxicity?
I have an action framework. All over my years of experience being in the corporate world where I did work with just industries across the board, I put together a framework, it’s called a 360-degree action framework. I’ll educate from the stage. It does allow me to take it into workshops and then even do one-on-one projects and work with organizations, but it is literally all around, how are we going to acknowledge and assess?
How are we going to communicate to connect? How are we going to build trust? How are we going to actually then implement because it’s all about the employee voice, the observation so that we know where we’re going? How are we going to operationalize it so that it does ultimately make itself throughout the entire organization? We’ve got to normalize everything when it comes to the health of the human. That’s really what I lead with. It just opens up additional opportunities if they arise.
Thank you again so much for your time.
Thank you.
—
Great conversation with Dr. Colleen. I’m going to talk about three key items that I thought were pretty significant to just recap. The very first one, Dr. Colleen said that we’re doing well enough in awareness and prevention but we need to work on that toxic environment. While most places are okay on the first two, addressing a toxic environment is where the real change is going to happen.
The second key takeaway is that leaders must start small. Listen to your employees and act to create supportive environments. This is really critical for retention as well as productivity. The third takeaway is that as an employee, setting boundaries and staying prepared with a clear career roadmap, are vital for navigating workplace challenges. Dr. Colleen leaves us with one actionable tip. She says, “Protect yourself by knowing your core values, setting boundaries, and investing in your growth, even if your company won’t,” which I think is fantastic advice.
I wanted to make sure that you check out the Promotion Readiness Quiz to see how close you are to your next promotion. Also, this a reminder that Unlock the Leader Within will be relaunching again on International Women’s Day and I would love for you to join the membership. It is a very inexpensive way to connect with not only myself but other amazing women. My goal is to get women promotion-ready, to get them to self-advocate for themselves, and to grow confidence to be able to continue to advance in their careers. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Remember to be brave, be bold and take action.
Important Links
- Top 40 Personal Development and Self-Improvement Podcasts for Women
- Dr. Colleen Saringer
- Dr. Colleen Saringer on LinkedIn
- Unlock the Leader Within Membership
- Promotion Readiness Quiz
About Dr. Colleen Saringer
Dr. Colleen Saringer (PhD), known as the Spillover Specialist, is a Workplace Culture (Environment) Mental Health Speaker, Trainer, Consultant and Researcher. Having weathered the challenges of two family-owned construction businesses, Dr. Colleen observed firsthand the “spillover effect” work and workplaces have on a person’s mental (and physical) health, specifically anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and suicide.
Not only does Dr. Colleen have the personal experience, her 25 years as an organizational health leader working alongside companies to alter their workplace environments, coupled with her research on workplace culture and health behavior policies, are what set her apart, and solidify the fact that, thriving, workplaces, built on the foundation of mental health, won’t happen by chance, or Human Resources. They’re a result of a business’ commitment.
Finally, although Dr. Colleen is an “expert” in her field, she too suffered from a mental health crisis which she speaks about in her keynotes, trainings and consulting work. It’s what allows her to tie in what cannot be ignored when addressing mental health at work, and that’s the third leg of the stool: toxic practices because they do have a connection to suicide.