toxic positivity

In many organizations, confidence often indicates strong leadership. Managers who display a strong sense of assurance and decisiveness are recognized for their strong encouragement and serve as an inspiration for their team. Although confidence in leadership is motivating, it becomes detrimental once it evolves to overconfidence which can significantly impact decision-making and organizational success. Learning to recognize and manage overconfidence is essential for management success. 

Overconfidence is a cognitive bias discussing how people tend to overestimate their abilities or the accuracy of their predictions. The National Bureau of Economic Research published a study exemplifying the overconfidence bias. This study revealed that financial executives only saw actual market returns fall within their expected confidence interval 38% of the time. This large discrepancy highlights how overconfidence presents in management, leading to flawed decision-making. 

Overconfident managers will often underestimate the risks associated with their decisions and ignore contradictory evidence to their beliefs. This exclusion of important information creates an illusion of control and a false sense of stability. Managers may believe that their expertise on a subject matter or past successes exempt them from facing significant challenges, leading to unrealistic project timeline estimates, exceeding budgets, and encountering unanticipated challenges. These unplanned issues can become incredibly damaging within complex organizations when there are high stakes and slim margins of error. 

While optimism and overconfidence may sound similar, the two concepts are distinct and have opposite effects. Optimism is characterized by possessing a positive outlook, which can motivate teams and rally a community. Overconfidence is an inflated sense of certainty that leads individuals to disregard contradictory evidence and discredit potential risks. When considering the two concepts, optimism can coexist with realism as managers can be positive yet skeptical. On the other hand, overconfidence often leads to misjudgments. 

The repercussions managers experience due to overconfidence are far-reaching and can lead to:

Determining unrealistic budgets or timelines can disrupt promising initiatives. Managers who overestimate their team's abilities or efficiency may put excessive pressure that they are realistically unable to perform. This can lead to a cycle of missed deadlines or increased costs, ultimately leading to a loss of stakeholder confidence. 

2. Poor Decision-Making

Ignoring alternative solutions can reduce innovation and can result in suboptimal outcomes. Failure to consider dissenting information and solely relying on a manager's previous experience can exclude important information in the decision-making process. This closed-minded approach can leave the organization vulnerable to risks that may have been avoided with a broader perspective. 

3. Erosion of Trust 

Persistent overconfidence that leads to multiple failed projects can destroy a mangers credibility. Not only can this reduce trust, but a team's morale may suffer from the continued failure to meet expectations. Over time, low morale can result in higher turnover rates as team members seek out environments with more achievable goals. 

Reach out to gain an external perspective to help counterbalance internal biases. Eliciting guidance from consultants, peer mentors, or even team members can provide a unique perspective. Incorporating various insights works to challenge assumptions and highlights areas of overconfidence. When gathering these perspectives, make sure to include diverse viewpoints. Individuals from different backgrounds, expertise, or organizational levels can help uncover hidden assumptions. Consider anonymous feedback mechanisms to encourage honest input. 

2. Solicit Disconfirming Feedback 

Actively seek out information that contradicts initial beliefs. While this may be uncomfortable, it's essential to identify blind spots in judgments and improve strategies. If struggling to find disconfirming feedback, put a team member in charge of seeking out contradictory information. Tasking a team member with this role can help prevent bias while sourcing the information. Furthermore, establishing “devil’s advocate” meetings that encourage team members to critique proposed ideas can make it easier to identify potential flaws in plans. Encouraging open conversation and critical perspectives can add value to the decision-making process. 

3. Consider Consequences 

When evaluating decisions, it is important to consider the consequences of each solution. Planning for each scenario and evaluating each on a case-by-case basis can work to remove initial biases. Incorporate quantitative tools such as cost-benefit analysis to objectively evaluate options. Additionally, dedicate time to review the long-term implications of decisions to ensure alignment with team and organizational goals. 

4. Utilize Decision-Making Framework

Structured decision-making processes, such as SWOT analysis, can help mitigate overconfidence by ensuring consistent factors are evaluated on the same criteria. Consider documenting the decision-making process for transparency and to use it for future decisions. 

5. Create a Culture of Openness

Create an environment that empowers team members to voice concerns and challenge ideas. Building a space that fosters psychological safety is crucial for gaining diverse perspectives and challenging overconfidence bias. Regularly reinforce the importance of constructive feedback and encourage team members to respectfully question assumptions. Leaders must set the tone by modeling openness and encouraging discussions. 

Overconfidence bias is a challenge that many managers face, but actively implementing strategies to prevent this bias can ensure strong leadership capabilities. By understanding the root causes of this bias, and adopting strategies to counteract it, managers can make more informed decisions and enhance their organization. Cultivating an open environment, seeking diverse perspectives, and embracing uncertainty will lead to stronger, more effective leadership. 

At first glance, a culture built on positivity seems like a dream. Uplifting messages, cheerful attitudes, and constant encouragement are all hallmarks of a "healthy" work environment. But what happens when positivity becomes mandatory—when it overshadows reality and invalidates the honest struggles employees face? That’s when positivity becomes toxic.

Toxic positivity is the subtle, yet damaging practice of demanding optimism at all costs. In this kind of culture, employees may feel they are not allowed to express disappointment, frustration, or doubt without being labeled “negative” or “unmotivated.” Over time, it leads to emotional shutdown, superficial conversations, and a lack of real feedback—all under the illusion of morale.

Take, for example, a mid-sized marketing tech company that has experienced rapid growth during the pandemic and was celebrated for its “can-do” attitude and upbeat culture. “We only want positive energy here” became a catchphrase repeated in all-hands meetings and internal Slack channels.

But as the company hit a plateau and began facing delivery delays and client churn, employees started to feel a disconnect. Team members who voiced concerns about deadlines were told to “trust the process.” Junior staff who asked for clearer priorities were reminded to “stay positive.” Over time, employee engagement scores fell and levels of burnout rose. And trust in leadership began to erode.

While leaders may adopt positivity as a well-intentioned morale booster, its overuse can undermine team performance, trust, and retention. When people feel they cannot express what’s really going on, innovation stalls, accountability slips, and emotional fatigue sets in. Employees don’t want to work in environments where emotions are filtered and struggles are ignored—they want to feel heard and valued for the full range of their experiences.

Moreover, research shows that psychologically safe workplaces—where employees can voice concerns without fear—outperform those where only agreeable input is welcome. In short, a culture that denies problems denies progress. For companies navigating uncertainty or change, addressing issues with realism and empathy isn’t just important—it’s essential for long-term success.

Fixing toxic positivity doesn’t mean abandoning optimism. It means rebalancing it with emotional authenticity. The marketing tech company began this shift by implementing three key strategies:

Recognizing that leaders need space to process difficult decisions before delivering them with clarity and compassion, the company instituted quarterly executive mastermind groups. These confidential peer sessions gave senior leaders a space to discuss challenges openly, get advice on how to deliver hard news with empathy, and reflect on how to model vulnerability without losing authority.

One CFO shared, “Being able to talk through layoffs with other executives before I spoke to the team helped me center the message in care and transparency, rather than panic or forced positivity.”

2. Real Feedback Systems

To rebuild psychological safety, the company launched an anonymous feedback platform and encouraged managers to hold monthly “Open Reality” sessions—non-judgmental, structured conversations where employees could discuss what wasn’t working and where they needed more support. This initiative helped surface actionable insights and fostered trust, as employees saw their concerns acknowledged and addressed.

3. Modeling Honest Optimism

Executives stopped ending every company meeting with “everything’s great” and began adopting a new mantra: “It’s okay to not be okay—but we’ll face it together.” By sharing challenges alongside successes, leaders signaled that being real was not only allowed, but valued. This shift helped employees see that optimism wasn’t about pretending, but about committing to progress, even when it’s tough.

Transforming a culture of toxic positivity doesn’t happen overnight—but it starts with intentional shifts in how leadership communicates and creates space for others to do the same. Here's how business leaders can begin:

Use employee surveys, listening sessions, or facilitated focus groups to ask tough questions: Do people feel safe speaking up? Are concerns being brushed aside in favor of “staying positive”? Identify areas where feedback is absent or glossed over.

2. Reframe Leadership Messaging

Instead of over-relying on optimistic language, aim for a tone that balances encouragement with honesty. Phrases like “We’re facing a challenge, and we’re working through it together” are more grounding than “Everything’s going to be fine!”

3. Build Support Systems

Set up mastermind groups or peer circles for executives and managers to talk candidly, vent in a healthy space, and get advice on how to communicate tough news with empathy. When leaders feel supported, they’re better able to support others.

4. Train Managers in Psychological Safety

Provide training on active listening, validating emotions, and managing conflict without avoidance. Give middle managers the tools to foster authenticity in 1:1s and team check-ins—without defaulting to forced optimism.

5. Celebrate Transparency

Reward transparency. When an employee voices a hard truth or surfaces a risk, acknowledge it publicly as a courageous and constructive act. This shows that the company values integrity as much as performance.

A strong company culture doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff—it meets it head-on with honesty, empathy, and shared resolve. The marketing tech company’s journey shows that when leaders move from toxic positivity to genuine optimism, they unlock not just morale, but meaning. By embracing reality and building space for honest dialogue, businesses create the kind of trust that fuels resilience, and results.

Reorgs, layoffs, RIFs, corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, business transformation. 

These terms have become the vernacular of business today - but what do they really mean? What are the implications of making these changes? And most importantly, how can we do them right?

At its core, corporate change stems from a realization: the current path isn’t working. A new direction is needed. This applies to both big businesses and small businesses - no organization is immune.

Companies pursue change for many reasons:

These are all valid reasons for making a change. If these changes aren’t made, companies run the risk of going out of business or becoming obsolete.

There is also the human side of change. This includes people getting moved around into different departments, people learning new technologies and adjusting the way they work, people getting fired, and those who are left having to pick up the slack for those who vacated.

Without clarity, the natural result of this is fear. Employees fear:

Fear creates disengagement and reduced productivity. Instead of people focusing on their jobs, they begin to focus on beefing up their resumes. They’ll start wondering if they are going to be fired next, and making personal/life/family plans in a stressed-out manner because they are uncertain of their livelihoods.

To implement change successfully - where the team can innovate, profits rise, and confidence can grow - organizations need to build a CLEAR vision that drives execution.

Clear is the most critical word in this statement because that is where most companies drop the ball.

Clear means that people:

A litmus test for knowing whether or not your organization did a good job of implementing change is if every employee at the company can go home to their family and say “The company has made some positive changes to the organization and I am excited about my role in this organization moving forward.”

Not just say it to their boss. Say it—and mean it—to their family.

What are common pitfalls companies pursue when trying to create a clear vision that drives execution?

So how do we build a clear vision that drives execution?

If upper managers, middle managers, and individual contributors can all communicate why a change decision was made, the company is much more likely to pass the litmus test of every employee going back to their families and saying “The company has made some positive changes to the organization and I am excited about my role in this organization moving forward.” If an organization does these 4 things, they will be well on their way to building a clear vision that drives execution.

What makes a change initiative successful? Is it the vision of grandeur around all the possibilities of what could happen if every domino falls into place? Or is it the ability to get the entire organization to permanently change the way they behave at a small, day-to-day level? Is it even possible to enact big changes within an organization?

These questions will be addressed in this article.

Let’s start with the root cause of change. Change occurs because the business has identified that the current way it has been operating can be improved.

Change becomes painful when not everyone agrees that the current way of operating can be improved or when they are unclear about why it isn’t cutting it anymore.

Executives, typically, are reticent to share details on why a change needs to occur for fear that by sharing these details, it might cause panic. Oftentimes they compound this issue by doubling down with toxic optimism - sharing things like “We have never had a layoff and never will!” or “Everything is going amazing and we are crushing it in the market!”

This compounding of toxic optimism hurts change initiatives because if “nobody is in fear of getting fired” or if “everything is going amazing and we are crushing it in the market” it lacks the honesty of the hard truth that comes with implementing a change initiative - that the overtly optimistic message shared in the past was in fact wrong and that there are opportunities for improvement.

For those of you who are fans of the TV show The Office - it is reminiscent of the episode where Michael has money problems and as opposed to confronting his girlfriend Jan about her spending, he gets a second job and tries to convince everyone else he is fine and that he doesn’t have money problems - crumpling up a dollar bill and pretending to toss it away while secretly putting it back into his pocket. 

This sounds like a silly analogy but it is the truth. Most executives would prefer to meet with their executive team/board, determine a new direction or change, and pass that message on to the middle managers with the hope that they can turn that message around and implement the change in the exact vision in which the executive team drew it up isolated. 

And if the change initiative doesn’t work, whose fault is it? You can probably surmise that it is not the executive team’s fault until the board loses patience and fires the CEO. 

In place of large change initiatives, many companies are finding “success” in driving efficiencies by making cuts. “Success” is in quotations because it doesn’t address the root cause of the issue with why change initiatives fail. The way these cuts work is a company, in an effort to reduce expenses while maintaining output, decides to let go of a certain percentage of the workforce and then ask the remaining team to accomplish the same amount of work they did with a larger staff.

This technically achieves the outcome the company identified because:

The unintended consequences are:

To successfully implement change, everyone in the company needs to be aligned on the problem to be solved. To get alignment, executives need to be vulnerable, honest, and open-minded.

Below is an example of what this looks like in a practical sense:

Memo from the CEO to the entire company:

“Hello team, I have met with our board and leadership team and we have identified a challenge as our business transitions into the future. Our competitors are currently offering a similar service for 30% less than we are currently offering our services. Obviously, we believe we have better service and overall outcomes than our competitors and our clients are locked into annual agreements, but we believe that there is a chance that our competitor might challenge our market share. We can take a wait-and-see approach to this issue, but if we do, we run the risk of losing significant business and being put in “catch-up” mode versus proactively reinforcing to our customers why they should continue working with us. We believe it would be prudent for us as a business to proactively identify additional value we can provide to our clients and/or cost savings that we can implement and pass along to the client. We are currently putting this plan in place and would like to involve everyone in the company to share their thoughts and ideas on how we might be able to add value and reduce costs. We likely won’t be able to implement every idea but by taking pieces of all of these ideas, we can create a solution that sets us up to thrive into the future. Therefore, over the span of the next 2 weeks, if you could please share with our colleague Jane Doe your ideas for how we can improve the business, she will compile them and we might follow up if we have future questions or need clarification.”

This message is powerful because it is honest, collaborative, and aligns everyone on the problem to be solved. As opposed to mysteriously letting go of 10% of the workforce and asking the rest to make up for the work or asking the team to implement a large change initiative without explaining why implementing this change initiative is important, this method creates understanding, receptivity, and collaboration.

And once there is alignment on the problem to be solved across the company, and a change initiative is implemented, showcasing the early wins is critical to building support of the cause. 

Similar to Paul Revere sharing word of good news across the American Revolutionary War, your team wants to know any and all good news supporting the cause of change - because by inviting their collaboration, they now want to see its success. 

If you are a leader and want to join this conversation or surround yourself with others discussing these issues, consider joining an executive mastermind group.