What Leaders Should Do About a Toxic Corporate Culture Before It Gets Worse

Singapore’s economy is one of the strongest in the world. Its workplace culture is not keeping pace, and I think every leader needs to sit with that contradiction for a moment. According to the inaugural Singapore Workplace Report 2026 by the Singapore Institute of Directors and Gallup, 

Only 14% of the country’s workforce is genuinely engaged at work, well below the Southeast Asia average of 25% and the global average of 20%. To me, that gap is not an HR statistic to skim past. It’s an early warning sign of a corporate culture problem that, left unaddressed, becomes a business problem: higher attrition, lower productivity, weaker customer experience, and a brand that struggles to attract talent.

In my experience, a toxic corporate culture rarely announces itself. It builds quietly, through one bad hire in a leadership role, one ignored survey result, or one team that stops speaking up, until the damage is visible in resignation letters, falling performance, or a headline the organisation never wanted. In this article, I want to walk through what I believe leaders need to know: the scale of the problem, the warning signs I’d want any leader to watch for, the four organisational culture types most companies fall into, and the concrete actions I’d recommend taking now, while the problem is still fixable.

Key Takeaways

• Toxic workplace culture usually develops through repeated behaviours, not one isolated incident.
• Low employee engagement can be an early warning sign of deeper culture and leadership problems.
• Understanding your dominant culture type helps leaders identify where cultural risks are most likely to appear.
• Managers play a critical role in shaping how workplace culture is experienced every day.
• Positive culture requires more than values statements; it requires consistent leadership behaviour, accountability, and follow through.
• Leaders should measure culture regularly, listen to employees, and act before problems become harder to fix.

Why I Believe Corporate Culture Deserves a Leader’s Full Attention Right Now

I no longer see culture as a soft issue. It’s a measurable driver of business performance. The same 2026 Singapore Workplace Report found that Singapore’s disengaged workforce is costing the economy an estimated US$73.6 billion a year in lost productivity a figure that, to me, turns low engagement from a cultural concern into a strategic liability for every organisation operating here. When a problem carries a nine-figure economic cost at the national level, I don’t think it’s reasonable for any individual leader to treat their own culture as someone else’s responsibility.

This isn’t only a Singapore phenomenon, but I find the local numbers make the case sharply: employees here aren’t walking away from strong careers, good pay, or a competitive economy. They’re walking away from how it feels to come to work.

What I’ve Learned a Toxic Corporate Culture Looks Like Before It Becomes a Crisis

In my view, toxic culture is rarely one dramatic event. It’s a pattern of small, repeated incidents that leaders can identify early if they know what to look for. These are the warning signs I’d point out to any leadership team:

• Disagreement is treated as disloyalty, and people stop raising problems in meetings because dissent is quietly punished.
• A manager or senior leader is known to raise their voice or humiliate staff, and it’s become an accepted part of “how things are” rather than an incident that gets addressed.
• Flagged risks or errors get dismissed with a version of “it’s just the way it is” instead of a real investigation.
• Certain team members are visibly excluded from decisions or informal conversations because they don’t “play by the rules” of an in-group.
• Exit interviews consistently cite culture, management style, or workload but the same issues resurface with the next hire.
• Employees over-work to signal commitment, and using flexible or leave policies quietly counts against someone.
• High performers leave first, while underperformers who fit the political culture stay longest.

One data point makes clear to me how high the stakes are once these patterns take hold: global research on toxic workplaces found that 53.7% of employees have quit a job specifically because of a toxic culture, and 58.9% said they would accept a lower salary just to escape one. What that tells me is that money stops being the retention lever once culture breaks down culture, not compensation, is the real lever leaders have to pull.

Any one of the signs above may be an isolated incident. But when I see several occurring together, repeatedly, in the same team or under the same manager, I take it as a strong signal that the culture itself, not the individuals in it, needs leadership intervention.

How I Think About Organisational Culture Type Before Trying to Fix It

When diagnosing culture problems, I find it useful to look at four broad organisational culture types based on whether a company focuses inward or outward, and whether it values stability or flexibility: clan culture, adhocracy culture, market culture, and hierarchy culture. Few organisations are a pure example of one type. Most blend two or three, but I believe every company has a dominant culture type that shapes how people behave, make decisions, and treat each other.

What matters is that toxicity doesn’t look the same in every culture type. A clan culture can become toxic through favouritism and resistance to difficult conversations. An adhocracy culture can become toxic through constant change and lack of structure. A market culture can become toxic through internal politics and win at all costs behaviour. Understanding which culture is dominant, in my experience, makes it far easier to identify where the risk actually sits and design a culture change plan that fits the organisation’s natural operating style.

Culture type	Core focus	Where it thrives	Toxic tipping point
Clan culture	People, mentorship, belonging	Family-run firms, close-knit teams	Cliques, favouritism, conflict avoidance
Adhocracy culture	Innovation, risk-taking, speed	Start-ups, product and R&D teams	Burnout, chaos, no accountability
Market culture	Results, competition, targets	Sales, finance, high-growth firms	Win-at-all-costs behaviour, internal politics
Hierarchy culture	Structure, control, consistency	Government-linked entities, regulated industries	Rigidity, fear of speaking up, slow escalation

Understanding your dominant culture type also helps you set a realistic long-term vision, which is something I emphasise with every leader I work with. Culture change does not mean completely replacing what already exists. A clan culture may need clearer boundaries and more accountability, while an adhocracy culture may need more consistency and structure. A market culture may need stronger values and guardrails that stop results from being pursued at any human cost. The goal is to strengthen what works while addressing the behaviours that are creating risk.

Eight Actions I’d Recommend Leaders Take Before Culture Gets Worse

From what I’ve seen, the organisations that recover from a toxic culture, or avoid one altogether, share a common pattern: leadership acts early, acts visibly, and treats culture as an ongoing discipline rather than a one-off fix.

1. Name the problem honestly and measure it. I always recommend running a confidential, well-designed employee engagement survey rather than relying on gut feel or exit interviews alone. Track the same questions over time so you can see whether specific teams, managers, or functions are outliers.
2. Go and listen directly. Surveys tell you where a problem exists; conversations tell you why. I’ve found that leaders who hold small-group listening sessions, without a direct manager present, consistently uncover issues that never surface in a formal channel.
3. Fix the manager layer first. In my experience, culture is set far more by direct managers than by mission statements. Invest in manager training on giving feedback, managing conflict, and recognising early signs of team stress, and hold managers accountable for how their team feels, not only for what their team delivers.
4. Define core values that are actually lived, not laminated. I’ve never seen a values poster do anything if senior leaders are exempt from the standard it describes. Every stated value needs a visible behaviour attached to it, and every breach, regardless of the offender’s seniority or performance, needs a consistent consequence.
5. Build psychological safety and a real reporting channel. Employees need a credible, confidential way to raise concerns about harassment, bullying, or unfair treatment without fear of retaliation, and they need to see that reports lead to action.
6. Set visible boundaries on workload and hours. I believe leaders who want to change the culture need to model the boundary themselves, logging off visibly, protecting leave, and not messaging staff after hours, rather than issuing a wellness policy nobody believes applies to them.
7. Tie leadership and manager performance to culture outcomes, not just targets. Include engagement scores, attrition of high performers, and psychological safety indicators in how leaders and managers are evaluated and rewarded.
8. Communicate the change plan, and repeat it. Employees who’ve seen past “culture initiatives” fade out will reasonably wait to see if this one is different. I always tell leaders to share what the data showed, what action is being taken and report back on progress at a fixed cadence. Quarterly is a reasonable starting point.

How I Think About Building a Positive Workplace Culture for the Long Term

I don’t believe a positive workplace culture is achieved through a single town hall or a revised set of core values on the website. It’s the result of a long-term, deliberate process: measuring engagement regularly, acting visibly on what the data shows, developing managers as the primary culture carriers, and holding leadership itself accountable to the same standard expected of every team member.

This matters beyond retention, and it’s something I keep coming back to with clients. Culture shapes how employees treat customers, how the organisation is perceived as an employer brand in a competitive Singapore labour market, and how resilient the business is when conditions get harder. In my experience, companies with a strong, positive culture recover faster from setbacks, adapt more easily to change, and attract the calibre of talent needed to achieve ambitious goals because purpose, environment, and performance reinforce each other rather than compete.

None of this requires a perfect organisation. It requires leaders willing to look honestly at where their culture is likely to break down and take consistent action before a manageable problem becomes a public one.

What Leaders Need to Do About Corporate Culture

Singapore’s workplace data sends a clear signal to me: engagement is low, and employees are increasingly willing to leave, or even take a pay cut, to escape a toxic work environment. I believe the organisations that will win the next decade of talent are the ones whose leaders treat corporate culture as a core business priority today, not as a project to revisit when performance starts to dip.

My advice is simple: start with honest measurement, listen to your people, address leadership behaviour first, and build systems that make a positive culture the default rather than the exception.

If you’re looking to strengthen your organisation’s culture, develop better leaders, or create a workplace where people can perform at their best, connect with Kenneth Kwan to start the conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the signs of a toxic corporate culture?

Common signs include employees being afraid to disagree, poor management behaviour being tolerated, repeated complaints about workload or leadership, exclusion from decisions, high performer attrition, and employees avoiding speaking up about problems.

How does toxic workplace culture affect business performance?

A toxic culture can contribute to higher employee turnover, lower engagement, weaker productivity, poorer customer experiences, and difficulty attracting and retaining talent. Over time, these issues can become significant business risks.

What are the four types of organisational culture?

The four broad organisational culture types are clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy. Most organisations are a combination of these types, with one or two usually more dominant than others.

How can leaders improve a toxic workplace culture?

Leaders can start by measuring employee engagement, listening directly to employees, addressing management behaviour, strengthening psychological safety, setting clear expectations, and holding leaders and managers accountable for culture outcomes.

Why are managers important to workplace culture?

Employees experience culture largely through their day to day interactions with their managers. How managers communicate, give feedback, handle conflict, recognise performance, and respond to concerns can have a significant influence on how employees experience the organisation.

Can a keynote or culture initiative fix a toxic workplace culture?

A single initiative rarely fixes a toxic culture. Sustainable change requires consistent leadership behaviour, accountability, employee feedback, effective systems, and reinforcement over time.

How can organisations prevent workplace culture from becoming toxic?

Organisations can prevent culture problems by measuring engagement regularly, acting on employee feedback, addressing poor leadership behaviour early, creating safe reporting channels, setting healthy workload boundaries, and making culture part of leadership accountability.

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