Let’s say you’re looking for a teaching position. You want to work in an excellent workplace—a healthy workplace, a workplace where you can flourish. What would that look like? What would be happening? When I ask people what a healthy workplace looks like, they say things like:

• I feel valued for the work that I do.
• People get along well.
• I get a chance to use and develop my skills.
• I have a say in decisions that affect me.
• It’s a fun place to be.
• I want to go to work every day.

I’ve never heard anyone say they want to go to work and experience mistrust, bullying, stress, and potential burnout. No one wants to be part of a workplace with high absenteeism, high turnover, and low morale. No one wants to be a part of what we call a “toxic workplace.” Sometimes we find ourselves in such an environment, not sure how we got here or how to get out. Instead of flourishing, we feel as if we’re barely surviving. What’s going on?

In their working paper for The Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training, Daryll Hull and Vivienne Read state: ”Quality working relationships represent the central pivot on which excellent workplaces are founded, underpinned by key variables such as good workplace leadership, clear values, having a say, and being safe” (3). “Quality working relationships”—that’s the key. Healthy workplaces are grounded in healthy relationships. What do healthy work relationships look like? How do relationships become unhealthy? How can we make unhealthy relationships healthier?

Two fundamental elements create healthy workplace relationships: respect and fairness. Let’s talk about fairness. Say you’re hired to teach English and history. What are the expectations connected to your job? If you wrote them all down, you’d probably come up with quite a list—from class preparation to your day-to-day interactions with the students, from writing report cards to staff meetings, from professional development to . . . the list goes on.

Teaching is demanding, but you are a teacher because you want to be. You like students. You like what you teach. You have been trained. You are ready to take on the job, but when you walk into a teaching position, you will need ongoing support from the school’s staff and administration to do your best. If you’re given a list of expectations with no support to meet those expectations, you’ll soon feel stress. You’ll probably also find yourself saying, “It’s not fair.”

The statement “It’s not fair” is an indication that somewhere along the line, a relationship has broken down or hasn’t been established in a way that nurtures a sense of fairness. It’s not that your school administration is “bad” or the rest of the staff is “bad.” Something in the way people are relating to each other is creating an unhealthy situation.

Feeling that things are not fair is not about not getting your own way. I have heard frustrated administrators say that staff members are self-centred, even mutinous, when they utter the words, “It’s not fair.” These words often mean, “No one is listening to me,” which in turn can mean, “Someone (whoever that is) does not care.”

In a 1997 article in the Harvard Business Review, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne discuss fair process: “Individuals are most likely to trust and cooperate freely with systems—whether they themselves win or lose by those systems—when fair process is observed” (69). Kim and Mauborgne identify three principles of fair process:

• Engagement—the opportunity to have a say
• Explanation—understanding the reasons for the decision
• Expectation clarity—being clear about expectations, obligations, rules (69).

In his article “Workplace Safety and Relationships,” Terry O’Connell, Australia Director of REAL Justice, says, “Fair process is fundamental to healthy relationships. It has little to do with whether people are going to like or dislike decisions that may even impact negatively on them. It is all to do with the process that is used. Being consistently fair in how you deal with others in the workplace is probably the greatest individual challenge we all face.”

Engaging in fair process, engagement, explanation, and expectation clarity can be further understood when we think about the elements of a healthy workplace named by Hull and Read earlier:

• Good workplace leadership
• Clear values
• Having a say
• Being safe

The International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP) has developed a useful way of looking at leadership. The following chart considers the way a leader “practices” being a leader, the way a leader relates to others.

Expectations and challenge, from low to high, are located along the vertical axis. Support and encouragement, from low to high, are located along the horizontal axis. The relationship between expectations/challenge and support/encouragement leads to four leadership styles:

1. High expectations/challenge but low support/encouragement
2. High support/encouragement but low expectations/challenge
3. Low expectations/challenge and low support/encouragement
4. High expectations/challenge and high support/encouragement

Let’s take a closer look at each style:

1. The leader has high expectations and is challenging, but provides little support and encouragement. This style is experienced as authoritarian or autocratic. Such a leadership style creates resentment and mistrust. In this case, we say that this leader is doing things to
2. The leader has high support and encouragement for everyone, but expectations are low. The leader allows inappropriate behavior, makes excuses for others, or takes on work that is not his to do. This leadership style can be demeaning to those from whom little is expected. The leader may think of himself as a good guy, but in the end, may resent taking on others’ responsibilities or believe that there is too much work not getting done. This leader does things for
3. When the leader sets low expectations and challenge, along with low support and encouragement, the leader is neglectful. This person is not A neglectful leader creates distress in the workplace.
4. This leader provides high, realistic expectations, challenges staff, and offers the necessary support and encouragement to meet those expectations. We call this kind of leader restorative. This leader works with

When decisions have to be made, a “with” leader engages in fair process. The leader gives people the opportunity to have a say, explains reasons for decisions, and clarifies what’s expected of everyone given the decision. Does everyone have to agree with the decision? No. Does everyone have to be happy about the decision? No. Should people have the opportunity to talk about issues that affect them and have an explanation for decisions that are made? Yes.

In a workplace environment, a “with” leader is clear about the limits and boundaries that go along with the expectations. When it comes to decisions involving human relations issues, for example, some things have to stay confidential; information can’t be shared with everyone. In these situations, the leader needs to establish clear limits, and put support in place to help staff understand the boundaries and live respectfully within them.

How do you develop healthy workplace relationships? Relationships depend on the conversations that you have. “With” conversations can help ground a workplace on high support and high expectations. How do you do that? Begin with conversations that build relationships and develop trust. Give everyone a chance to talk. People learn what it’s like to be listened to, and what it feels like to have a say. People get to know each other. Community values develop. People start to feel safe talking about difficult things. Through community-building conversations, leaders provide the basis for a healthy workplace: clear values, having a say, and being safe. When people feel safe, they can have conversations to brainstorm ideas, to discuss an issue or concern. Differences inspire creativity and don’t create harm.

When relationships break down and harm does occur, a leader can offer processes to bring people together to talk about what happened. Those in conflict are offered the opportunity to find a way forward to a healthy, respectful relationship.

Whether conversations bring people together to address a shared issue, to brainstorm, or to address a conflict, there are three basic questions to ask:

1. What happened? Or: What’s happening?
2. Who is affected and in what ways?
3. What do we need to do to move forward?

A healthy workplace does not appear out of the morning mist. A healthy workplace needs intentional ways of being together to build relationships. A healthy workplace requires a way to rebuild relationships when they become damaged. Clear realistic expectations, support to meet those expectations, fair processes, and good questions can build a healthy workplace where everyone is valued, respected, and has a great time working together.

Back to the job search: What questions are you going to ask when you go for a job interview to find out if the work environment will be a healthy one for you?

Works Cited

• Hull, Daryll and Vivienne Read. “Simply the Best Workplaces in Australia.” ACIRRT, Working Paper 88. University of Sydney, December 2003.
• Kim, W. Chan and Renee Mauborgne. “Fair Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy.” Harvard Business Review (July–August 1997): 65–75.
• O’Connell, Terry. (Australian Director, Real Justice) “Workplace Safety and Relationships.” Unpublished article. Springdale, Australia, 2011.