The Toxicity We Tolerate at Work | Catherine Mattice

Feb 24, 2026

Catherine Mattice, founder and CEO of Civility Partners who helps organizations fix workplace bullying and incivility. She explains how toxicity hides in sarcasm, neglect, and ambiguity. Short stories cover how culture is shaped by everyday interactions, why leaders tolerate low-level harm, and what repair truly requires.

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INSIGHT

Quiet Toxicity Erodes Trust

Toxicity is usually quiet: sarcasm, neglect, unresolved conflict and erosion of trust undermine performance over time.
Catherine Mattice observed one toxic individual dismantle a good culture while leadership refused to act, increasing turnover and cost.

ANECDOTE

How Personal Bullying Sparked Her Career

Catherine Mattice became focused on workplace bullying after experiencing bullying as an HR leader where a single person damaged culture and leadership ignored it.
She researched academic work, wrote a book, and started Civility Partners to intervene in such fires.

INSIGHT

Toxicity Exists On A Spectrum

Toxicity spans a spectrum from incivility and microaggressions to harassment, and low-level behaviors often get ignored until escalation.
Ignoring pervasive 'legal' bad behavior allows harm to accumulate and may escalate into unlawful harassment.

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Toxicity at work isn’t always obvious. Most times, it shows up as sarcasm, neglect, and unresolved conflict. Catherine Mattice learned this firsthand while working as an HR leader inside an organization where one person slowly broke a good culture. Leadership would not step in, and she watched good people leave. That experience led her to spend years helping organizations understand and address the quiet harm they often ignore. In this episode, Dart and Catherine discuss how toxicity emerges from systems, not just people, why it is often tolerated for far too long, and what leaders misunderstand about responsibility, power, and repair.

Catherine Mattice is the founder and CEO of Civility Partners, where she helps organizations address workplace toxicity, bullying, and incivility. She is the author of Navigating a Toxic Workplace For Dummies.

In this episode, Dart and Catherine discuss:
- How toxic behavior actually shows up at work
- Why ambiguity fuels bullying
- When neglect becomes a form of harm
- The spectrum from incivility to harassment
- Why leaders tolerate “low-level” bad behavior
- How culture lives in everyday interactions
- When high performers become protected sources of harm
- Why managers shape culture more than CEOs
- What repairing a toxic workplace really takes
- And other topics…

Catherine Mattice is the founder and CEO of Civility Partners. Her work focuses on helping organizations identify and address workplace bullying, incivility, and toxic behavior. She works closely with leaders, managers, and HR teams to redesign the conditions that shape how people treat one another at work. Under her leadership, Civility Partners has worked with over 250 clients, including major organizations like Chevron, NASA, and Stanford University. She is the author of Navigating a Toxic Workplace For Dummies and has created over 60 courses on LinkedIn Learning.

Resources Mentioned:
Navigating a Toxic Workplace For Dummies, by Catherine Mattice: https://www.amazon.com/Navigating-Workplace-Dummies-Catherine-Mattice/dp/1394326130

Connect with Catherine:
Official website: https://civilitypartners.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinemattice/

Work with Dart:
Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what’s most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.