Your workplace might not be toxic. It might just be missing the biology lesson that explains why everyone keeps behaving badly.Work burnout is rarely one person's failure, and this conversation makes that case clearly. Occupational psychologist and Truth, Lies, and Work co-host Leanne Elliott joins Cait to untangle what actually makes a toxic work environment, and what we keep getting wrong when we try to fix it. Before culture initiatives and values workshops, there are psychosocial risk factors: the concrete, measurable conditions that quietly drive stress and erode workplace culture and wellbeing. Cait pushes back from the body, pointing out that biology can make a bonded team reject a new hire without anyone realizing it, and that childhood trauma can permanently rewire how someone reads neutral feedback. Leanne doesn't argue. She acknowledges the limits of what organizational psychology can change and makes the case for cross-disciplinary collaboration as the only honest path forward.One of the more useful reframes here is the difference between a toxic work environment and a bad fit. Real toxicity is behavioral. Workplace incivility rarely looks like explosive conflict. It looks like withheld information and subtle undermining that compounds quietly until mental health and psychological safety have eroded completely. Frequency is what turns friction into toxicity, and self awareness is what makes it possible to catch before it spreads.The conversation gets pointed on manager training and workplace burnout. Managers have the single largest documented impact on employee health and performance, receive almost no formal training, and remain the first target when things go wrong. Work burnout and employee behavior are treated as individual failures rather than systemic ones, and that framing lets organizations off the hook. The future of work depends on whether organizations are willing to teach pro-social skills to everyone from day one, not just the people who end up with direct reports. That's not a small idea. It just hasn't been treated like one.Episode Breakdown:00:00 Introduction: Building a Top Global Business Podcast06:02 The Role of Occupational Psychology in Workplace Wellbeing11:52 Psychosocial Risk Factors and Organizational Culture17:59 Toxic Work Environment or Bad Fit? How to Tell the Difference24:07 What Workplace Incivility Actually Looks Like36:48 Manager Training, Burnout, and Who Carries the Burden45:00 Self-Awareness at Work and the Power of FeedbackConnect with Leanne Elliott: https://oblonghq.com/https://truthliesandwork.com/ https://www.instagram.com/truthlieswork/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetleanne/ Connect with Cait:Cait Donovan is a keynote speaker, author, and host of FRIED: The Burnout Podcast, specializing in burnout, mismatch, and sustainable performance at work. She partners with corporate leaders, teams, and professional associations through keynotes, workshops, and leadership sessions that treat burnout as data, not failure, to help organizations reduce burnout without blame or shame and build healthier, high performing cultures.To bring Cait to your organization or event, book an inquiry call here: https://bit.ly/bookcaitLearn more about Cait’s speaking work: https://www.caitdonovan.com/speakingShort on time? Watch this 3-min video: https://bit.ly/caitdreel2025Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm