Experiences of toxic leadership
Friends to foes
2 min readCompany type
In small to medium companies and NGOs
Toxic pattern
sabotage
threats
harassment
“I was a junior assistant, and she was leading the legal department. At first, we started off well. As I was new to the city, she took care of me, and invited me to join her friend group and meet new people. I considered us to be friends. One of my responsibilities at the company where we worked was to contact clients with certain legal questions, which were not directly related to what she was doing. For some reason, she wasn’t aware of that and took it as some personal threat. She thought I was undermining her and trying to steal her position. Instead of talking to me, she complained to her boss and portrayed me as an evil person. She was hoping to get me fired. The boss asked me if the task I was accused of “stealing” was my responsibility. I said “Yes, it’s written in my contract that I’m supposed to do this.” He stood in my defense, but this woman kept micromanaging and manipulating everyone. She was gossiping, spreading false information about me. She was a nervous wreck and eventually almost got fired. One morning called my private phone number at six in the morning to threaten me that if I didn’t stop what I was doing, she was going to get me thrown out of the company. She crossed all the lines. I was stressed and super scared of what she could do. She seemed to be completely uncontrollable. I was distressed for a long time, but the HR department didn’t care. They said, “You’re a grownup - deal with it!”. I couldn't let anyone know what was happening as I was afraid to be seen as a weak person who cannot deal with their problems. I was completely alone and scared until the lady finally decided to leave the company."