Toxic communication in workplace: Exploring its effects and ways to handle it

Difficult and toxic communication in workplace leads to trauma which in turn contributes to increase in stress-level and anxiety. More than often we find situations of such difficult and toxic communication especially during conflicts at the workplace. These may result in deleterious effects on the victims- right from stress-disorder, anxiety disorder, lowering of dignity, humiliation, low self-esteem and dysfunctional relationships with peers. Left unattended, a continuous ecosystem of toxic communication may lead to complete breakdown of relationships, lower productivity of the employees, and increase in trust deficit and hamper any efforts of team building. This paper is based on interviews of television journalists from different news channels on the impact of toxic communication in the workplace and the need to explore the possible coping strategies to deal with such a difficult communication ecosystem.