Glossing: How Toxic Positivity at Work Undermines Morale

In the constantly evolving world of work, change happens fast. Whether it is yet another iteration of a work model, or a confusing reorg after everyone had finally settled from the last shake-up, organizations are increasingly agile and taking big swings to combat market instability and lagging numbers.

While those changes may feel urgently necessary to executive leadership who often have greater insight into the overall picture of an organization, they can seem random and disruptive, or even scary and negative, to the vast majority of people to whom those changes will impact most. It turns out, the way that change at work is handled can have a significant impact on how people embrace the inevitable changes that influence their daily lives.

“Glossing” is a trending term used to describe what happens when leaders avoid addressing hardships in the workplace, and instead promote a façade of positivity. Often instigated by change, stress at work can significantly impact morale, and how those feelings are met by leadership can make a difference as to whether change is embraced with curiosity and optimism, or fear and stress. Also known as “toxic positivity,” glossing can feel patronizing and insensitive to the very people who are often most asked to implement the behavior changes set by executive leadership.

Wiley Workplace Intelligence sought to understand if and how glossing is impacting organizations. If glossing is as pervasive as trending articles and research make it seem, what can leadership in organizations do to mitigate these concerns and provide genuine support for employees during times of change? While we can’t always prevent change from happening, or the stress caused by instability at work, leaders play a large role in whether changes can be navigated with curiosity and optimism or if they unintentionally create potentially toxic environments where people do not feel validated in their feelings or safe to voice concerns.

Employees More Likely to Trust Managers vs. Executive Leadership

We found that of the 2,500 individuals surveyed, only 53% felt comfortable discussing their true feelings about change with executive leadership vs. 78% of them that felt more comfortable with their co-workers and managers. This can be for a number of reasons including proximity, shared experience with the organization and patterns of behavior from leadership, fear of repercussion, and the role of managers as intermediaries. These factors create a more comfortable environment for open communication vs. people who are less connected to your daily work life.

However, this difference can also be due to cultural norms in an organization. When executive leadership is inaccessible to the average employee, this can create a potentially negative dynamic that dictates that employees must do what they are told, without the opportunity to engage in meaningful feedback sessions to have their voices heard. Repeated over time, this relationship can create toxic work environments where people become disengaged and disillusioned about their impact on the organization at large which can be detrimental in the long term.

Executives Perceived to Gloss More Than Managers

Respondents reported feeling like leadership is more likely to gloss over challenges than their managers, sharing that they feel like leadership may recognize the potential challenges or stressors but does not actually factor them in when making decisions. For example, work models are a hot topic in organizations today, inspiring passionate feelings on both sides of the argument. Leadership may understand that these decisions have a significant impact on employees’ lives and wellbeing but may not actually factor that into their decision to require people in the office, often touting the myriad benefits of in-person collaboration without validating the concerns of their people.

Reasons for glossing may vary, and managers are often stuck in the middle. They do not have the same influential power that executives do but must behave as an example for their teams. That predicament can often lead to glossing, where they feel they must support the company line, regardless of their own feelings about it, as how they behave in response to change can influence how their teams feel.

That, however, isn’t always true which is likely why people feel safer sharing their feelings with their managers vs. executive leadership. When managers are more honest and transparent, it creates an environment where individual contributors feel safe to share their feelings. Remember, whether you gloss or not, those feelings are there and making space for them can make a difference between creating a dismissive environment of toxic positivity or one where honest feelings are at the very least heard and validated.

How to Fight Glossing and Build Trust

While glossing is often done unintentionally, with the goal of projecting a positive attitude about potentially destabilizing or impactful changes, it can ultimately undermine the goal and create more frustration and negative feelings than if they would have acknowledged potential pain points and stress to begin with. In fact, making space to validate potentially negative feelings goes a long way towards acceptance.

Here are five top ways organizations can help people feel more comfortable while navigating change, which don’t include toxic positivity, according to our respondents:

By promoting open communication, encouraging honest feedback, fostering a culture of psychological safety, and implementing regular check-ins to stay in communication about how people are feeling about organizational changes and issues, you can build a truly positive culture in your organization, no glossing needed.

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Wiley Workplace Intelligence conducts in-depth research on key workplace issues by gathering insights from individual contributors, managers, and leaders. Wiley Workplace Intelligence then analyzes these findings to provide actionable solutions that are shared in our blog.