Toxic Workplace Culture: Why “We’re Like a Family Here” Is a Red Flag
“We’re like a family here.” It’s a phrase that appears in job ads, interviews and conversations about corporate culture, and for some people it’s an immediate red flag.
There are plenty of familiar signs of a toxic work environment, from micromanagement and excessive approval processes to workplace rules built around the assumption that employees can’t be trusted. Yet some of these toxic workplace behaviours point to a broader dynamic that gets far less attention: companies hiring capable adults, giving them significant responsibilities and then treating them as though they still need permission, supervision or verification to make ordinary decisions.
There’s a term for this: workplace infantilisation. It overlaps with micromanagement and paternalistic management, but it can also be embedded in corporate culture rather than coming from one toxic or micromanaging boss. Research into workplace paternalism has even examined the familiar “we’re like a family here” metaphor, including the way it can position managers as parental figures and employees as the children.
This episode of Track Changes On looks at the strange amount of permission-seeking we accept as a normal part of corporate life, from asking another adult for permission to take leave to needing approval for decisions that sit comfortably within our professional expertise.
It also explores the contradiction between companies telling employees to take ownership while creating environments where asking permission is safer than exercising independent judgement. Research on autonomy at work suggests this distinction matters: autonomy-supportive leadership is associated with stronger motivation, engagement, job satisfaction and wellbeing.
So what happens when a workplace says it trusts its employees, while its management practices communicate something very different? And could some of the behaviour managers complain about, including employees constantly seeking approval or refusing to make decisions, actually be behaviour the workplace has taught them?
In this episode
* What workplace infantilisation means and how it differs from micromanagement
* Why “we’re like a family here” can create an uncomfortable parent-child dynamic at work
* How excessive approval and permission-seeking can become part of corporate culture
* Why employees may stop taking ownership when independent decisions repeatedly get questioned
* What research tells us about employee autonomy, motivation and workplace wellbeing
* How to distinguish legitimate workplace accountability from unnecessary control
* Why toxic workplace behaviours don’t always come from a toxic boss
Research referenced in this episode
Slemp et al., Leader autonomy support in the workplace: A meta-analytic review (2018), Motivation and Emotion. A meta-analysis of 72 studies examining autonomy-supportive leadership. The research found positive associations with autonomous motivation, job satisfaction, engagement and wellbeing, alongside negative associations with workplace distress.
Alakavuklar, “We Are a Family” – A Critical Organizational Discourse Analysis (2009). Examines the use of family language within organisations and its relationship with paternalistic management. The paper discusses how the family metaphor can position managers as parental figures who direct and supervise employees while creating expectations around loyalty and obedience.
Casey, “Come, Join Our Family”: Discipline and Integration in Corporate Organizational Culture (1999). Research examining the use of “family” and “team” metaphors in corporate culture and their relationship with organisational discipline and control. Rather than assuming family-oriented cultures necessarily empower employees, Casey examines how these cultural practices can regulate employee behaviour.
Oravec, research on employee infantilisation and workplace monitoring (2024). Uses “employee infantilization” to describe constraints on employee agency, including situations where organisations effectively determine employees’ needs or treat their judgement as diminished.
Reid, Industrial Paternalism: Discourse and Practice in Nineteenth-Century French Mining and Metallurgy (1985), Comparative Studies in Society and History. Examines the much longer history of paternalistic employment relationships and the use of family relationships to frame employer authority and worker dependency.
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