A team’s culture is its soul. When it’s strong, people are aligned, they understand their roles, and there is an energy that helps the work move forward. When it’s weak, everything feels heavier than it should. People hesitate, protect themselves, question each other’s motives, and spend more time surviving the environment than contributing to it. You cannot expect high-level output from employees who are constantly worried about what is happening around them. Culture killers can damage that soul quickly, and in my opinion, undermining is the worst of them. Disrespecting a teammate, sabotaging someone’s work, dismissing good ideas, gossiping behind someone’s back, or stealing credit destroys trust. Once people believe the person beside them may be working against them, the team is no longer operating as a team.
I know I keep repeating it, but I truly believe treating people the way you want to be treated is the path to a high-level culture. That means leading with empathy and connection instead of ego, fear, or control. It also means holding people accountable when their behavior threatens the group. Being empathetic doesn’t mean allowing someone to damage everyone around them. Leaders own the culture, and part of that ownership is protecting the people who are contributing to it.
Undermining can be difficult to recognize because it rarely announces itself. Sometimes it’s a coworker listening to a conversation and then presenting someone else’s idea as their own. Sometimes it’s a person withholding information, allowing a teammate to fail, and then stepping in to point out the failure. It can appear as a joke, a side conversation, an eye roll during a meeting, or the constant dismissal of another person’s input. One incident may seem small, but the pattern is poisonous. Coworkers begin questioning who they can trust, relationships either break or never have the opportunity to form, and people stop sharing ideas because they’re afraid someone will use the information against them.
Poor communication creates the conditions for much of this behavior. When goals are vague, updates are inconsistent, and responsibilities are poorly defined, people begin filling in the blanks themselves. Teammates compete because nobody knows who owns what. Departments protect information because they believe access creates value or job security. People begin questioning why one employee knows something another one doesn’t, and suspicion grows. Clear communication won’t eliminate every bad behavior, but it removes many of the hiding places where undermining survives.
A lack of empathy creates another opening. When people are treated like tools instead of human beings, there is no real connection holding the team together. A leader who cares only about output may continue assigning work without ever understanding what drives the person doing it. The employee eventually disengages, leaves, or becomes part of the toxic energy surrounding the group. Not every task will match someone’s passion, and work will always include responsibilities we don’t love, but people should still feel seen. They should understand why their work matters, how it connects to the mission, and whether leadership cares about their success beyond today’s production number.
Unresolved conflict adds fuel. A disagreement that should have been handled in one honest conversation can turn into months of resentment when leadership ignores it. People form sides, stop communicating, and begin interpreting every action through the lens of the original argument. The issue is no longer the project, deadline, or customer. It becomes personal. This is why leaders need to step in early, pause the conversation when emotions rise, gather the missing information, and make sure everyone is heard. The people involved may not completely agree when the conversation ends, but they should understand each other’s position and know what happens next.
Micromanagement damages culture in a different way. Instead of openly working against someone, it slowly removes their confidence and autonomy. A manager hovers, questions every decision, and overrides the work regardless of the outcome. Eventually, the employee stops making decisions because they know the manager will change them anyway. Then the manager complains that nobody takes ownership. You can’t demand ownership while refusing to release control. Give people clear expectations, provide the necessary resources, agree on when you’ll check progress, and then let them work. Accountability still matters, but checking in and taking over are not the same thing.
These culture killers feed one another. Poor communication creates confusion. Confusion creates conflict. Conflict left unresolved creates resentment. Resentment leads to gossip, territorial behavior, and undermining. Micromanagement enters when leadership loses trust, which causes employees to protect themselves even more. Before long, everyone is playing defense. People stop offering ideas, avoid responsibility, and focus on making sure they aren’t blamed. The organization may still be operating, but the culture is no longer helping it move. It is actively slowing it down.
Leadership has to interrupt that cycle. Intentional undermining needs to be addressed immediately, and I realize this may sound harsh compared with some of what I’ve written about empathy and coaching. My belief is that once the facts are clear and it’s established that an employee knowingly tried to damage a teammate, dismissal may be necessary. Someone who intentionally sabotages a coworker will be extremely difficult for the team to trust again. Employees at every level will hold back around that person, and asking them to continue working together as though nothing happened tells everyone that the standard of respect is optional. Investigate fairly, get the facts, and give the person an opportunity to respond—but protect the culture.
That same urgency should apply to repairing communication, resolving conflict, and stopping micromanagement before they become accepted behavior. Keep the mission clear. Make responsibilities understandable. Share information instead of allowing people to build power by hiding it. Know your people, care about their goals, and place them where their strengths can contribute. When conflict appears, deal with it professionally and directly. When someone is capable of owning the work, set the expectation and step back far enough to let them do it.
Trust can’t grow when people are constantly looking over their shoulders. Long-term goals become difficult to see when you’re worried about the relationships immediately beside you. A fractured team can’t execute at its highest level because too much of its energy is spent fighting, protecting territory, or simply checking out. The best cultures don’t require everyone to be best friends, but they do require people to respect one another, communicate honestly, and care about the success of the person to their left and right.
Culture doesn’t become strong because leadership talks about it. It becomes strong because leaders protect it through their decisions. What they tolerate, reward, confront, and model tells the team what the culture really is. Lead with heart, but don’t confuse heart with weakness. Communicate clearly, address harmful behavior, resolve tension, and give good people room to perform. When teammates trust one another and care about each other’s success, the culture stops being a slogan. You can feel it in how the team works.