WHEN THE POISON COMES FROM WITHIN

There is a type of destruction that makes no sound. It doesn’t shout, it doesn’t confront, it doesn’t slam doors. It whispers. It plants. It insinuates. And by the time you notice, the damage is already done — not to structures, but to people. To the trust that slips away without anyone being able to name exactly why. To the motivation that dwindles as if something invisible were draining it. To the atmosphere that rots, cell by cell, while everyone wonders: what is happening here?
For years, we have built powerful narratives about toxic environments. We talk about authoritarian leadership, sick cultures, systems that grind people down. And all of this is real, necessary, urgent. But there is a side of this conversation that remains uncomfortable, almost forbidden: not all toxicity is systemic. Sometimes, it has a name, a surname, and a badge. And it acts with a precision that would embarrass any strategist.

The Initial Charm Trap
What happens when the problem isn’t the company, but that one person? When there’s no structural overload, no institutionalized harassment, no omission from senior management — yet the team still suffers? When data points to a balanced environment, but the emotional thermometer shows a high fever?
Let me give a practical example: A few years ago, during a DCCO consultancy at a mid-sized company, I followed a new coordinator who arrived with impeccable credentials and an impeccable discourse on humanized management. In the first 60 days, she earned everyone’s trust. But she soon started operating differently in side conversations: questioning board decisions, suggesting that certain colleagues were “privileged,” insinuating that processes were unfair. When HR investigated engagement rates three months later, they found that 40% of the team was considering leaving — but no one could explain exactly why. The problem was not in the structure. It was in a single person reprogramming collective perception daily.
From the perspective of cognitive behavioral development, what happens here is an interference in collective mental maps. The person does not alter processes — they alter meanings. They do not change facts — they change interpretations. And they do this by exploiting a fundamental principle of social cognition: we trust those who seem to protect us more than those who formally lead us.

Manipulation as a Misused Social Skill
There is, indeed, the employee who destroys. Not out of incompetence — sometimes, technically, they are even brilliant. But due to a fatal combination: misaligned emotional intelligence, manipulative social skill, and absence of commitment to the common good. This person doesn’t fail out of weakness. They choose. They choose to undermine. They choose to fragment. They choose to use the victim narrative as a shield and destabilization as a tool.
And the most dangerous part? They almost always start by charming. They arrive well-articulated, friendly, approachable. They quickly earn trust. They speak the right language, at the right time, to the right people. But while building this facade, they are already sowing chaos. Not explosively — that would be easy to spot. But drop by drop, conversation by conversation, insinuation by insinuation.
One case I observed was Julio. He was a data analyst at a tech startup. Extremely competent, always available to help. Gradually, he became the team’s “confidant” — the one everyone vented to. But Julio did not keep confidences: he strategically redistributed them, always omitting contexts and distorting nuances. “So-and-so said your work isn’t up to par.” “Someone commented that you shouldn’t be on this project.” In six months, the once-collaborative team began working in silos, afraid to expose vulnerabilities. Productivity dropped significantly, impacting team motivation. By the time leadership recognized the pattern, Julio had already requested a transfer — leaving behind an emotionally devastated environment.
In organizational development terms, this is called systemic relational sabotage: the person does not attack the productive system, they attack the system of connections. And connections are the invisible infrastructure of any culture. When they collapse, everything else falls apart — even if processes are flawless.

When the Organizational Immune System Fails
The main problem is that our organizational culture still doesn’t handle this well. We are agile at diagnosing structural issues. We can map overload, excessive pressure, communication failures. But when the problem is people — someone who knows the codes, exactly what to say and to whom — things get complicated. Because there is no easy metric for manipulation. No dashboard for malice. No KPI for destructive intent.
And here comes the trap of poorly applied political correctness: fear of judgment, of accountability, of saying “this person is causing harm.” As if naming the problem were worse than letting it corrode everything. As if the only acceptable toxicity comes from above, never from within. As if every employee were, by definition, a victim — and never a perpetrator.
I remember working with the sales team at a multinational in the financial sector. A manager began presenting recurring complaints of moral harassment and overload. HR opened three investigative processes in 18 months — all concluded there was no evidence. But with each investigation, she intensified her persecution narrative, mobilizing internal support groups and pressuring the organization publicly. Fearing reputational damage, the company hesitated to act. Result: six high-performing professionals resigned, citing “an unstable and polarized environment.” Only when a formal complaint of document manipulation appeared did the company finally act — but the damage was already done.
From the perspective of organizational cognitive behavioral development, what failed here was systemic discernment: confusing empathy with complicity, care with paralysis. Every healthy organization needs to develop its immune system — the ability to identify, isolate, and neutralize behaviors that threaten the collective, without losing its humanity in the process.

Four Guidelines for Conscious Protection
So, what to do? How to protect organizational culture without falling into paranoia or passivity?
1. Data is an ally of care, not an enemy of empathy
Mapping psychosocial risks with technical rigor isn’t about distrusting people — it’s about protecting the system. When you have evidence that the structure is balanced, you can more clearly identify when the problem is behavioral. This isn’t accusation: it’s organizational cognitive diagnosis. It’s the difference between treating a fever and treating an infection.
2. Speed defines response health
Toxic behaviors thrive over time. The longer you delay investigating, analyzing, and acting, the more they take root. More people get contaminated. Doubt sets in. From a behavioral development perspective, each day of inaction is a negative reinforcement: the system learns that behavior is tolerable.
3. Communication is responsibility, not exposure
Silence creates a vacuum. And a vacuum is filled with speculation, fear, parallel versions. The team needs to know the organization saw, investigated, and took action. That values are not decorative. That culture is not a slogan. This is not defensiveness — it’s systemic integrity.
4. Caring also means setting boundaries
An organization that cannot protect itself from those who harm it internally is not being humane — it is being negligent. And negligence here has a name: allowing one person to destroy dozens. Choosing complicity in the name of a supposed empathy that is actually cowardice.

Toxicity: Origin or Symptom?
But there is a distinction that cognitive behavioral development compels us to make — and few organizations have the maturity to face: not all toxicity is original. Some people carry destructive patterns as a trait; others were poisoned by the environment itself.
The difference isn’t semantic — it’s diagnostic. Ignoring it can lead to naivety (tolerating the intolerable) or cruelty (punishing someone who is only reacting to a sick system).
Practical example: In a tech consultancy, a coordinator who had been collaborative and respected became progressively cynical, defensive, and undermining. Three months of investigation revealed: he wasn’t the original problem — he was the first to react to it. Leadership above him operated with systematic manipulation, and his “toxicity” was actually a dysfunctional attempt to protect the team. When the real leadership was removed, he returned to balance within weeks.
This doesn’t justify destructive behavior — but it contextualizes origins. From an organizational behavioral development perspective, ignoring this difference is like treating a fever without investigating the infection: you may eliminate the visible symptom and leave the disease untouched.
Toxic environments don’t just drain — they convert. Healthy people, when chronically exposed to sick cultures, develop adaptive mechanisms that, while functional for immediate survival, become destructive patterns. Cynicism as armor. Distrust as strategy. Sabotage as self-defense. And when these patterns crystallize, reaction becomes identity.
Here the vicious cycle sets in: the poisoned person begins to poison others. The environment that sickened them now multiplies through them. And if the organization doesn’t intervene with discernment — identifying where toxicity originates and how it spreads — the system enters progressive collapse. There will be no “way back” without structural intervention, because each new member will be contaminated, and each departure will be replaced by someone who, within months, repeats the pattern.
The golden question for leaders is not just: “Is this person toxic?”
It is: “Has this person always been this way — or did we make them this way?”
And the answer requires humility. If it’s the second option, removing the person without correcting the environment is cruelty disguised as management. You are punishing someone who got sick due to a system you should have protected.
But if it’s the first — if there is evidence of chronic pattern, history of manipulative behavior across multiple contexts, inability to self-regulate even with support — then the ethical responsibility is not “to help more.” It is to protect the collective. Some people need help that the organization is not structured to provide. Trying to “save” someone operating with structural toxicity while sacrificing dozens around them is not compassion — it is negligence disguised as kindness.

Empathy That Protects the Collective
True empathy is systemic. It looks at the whole. It asks: who is being protected when I do not act? And the answer, almost always, is uncomfortable: we are protecting those who destroy and sacrificing those who build.
No healthy environment survives internal poison without response. No strong culture withstands silent sabotage without reaction. And no genuine care ignores the difference between those who suffer and those who feign suffering to justify the harm they cause.
In the work of human and organizational cognitive behavioral development, one of the most uncomfortable discoveries is this: not all conflict is an opportunity for growth. Some conflicts are simply destructive. Recognizing this is not cynicism — it is maturity. It is the ability to distinguish between creative tension and relational sabotage. Between necessary discomfort and calculated toxicity.
So yes: toxic employees exist. Denying this does not make us more humane — only more vulnerable. Caring also means containing. It means setting boundaries. It means saying no. Because the health of the collective depends not only on whom we add but also on whom we have the courage to remove.
For a deeper understanding of human and organizational cognitive behavioral development, conscious relationships, and dynamics that truly transform cultures, visit my blog and explore hundreds of articles that go beyond the obvious, provoking structured reflections on behavior, bonds, and personal and collective evolution.

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