Excluding behaviours deeply embedded in our corporate cultures cause significant harm
Nobody raised their voice. Nothing obvious happened. But somehow, you stopped being invited to meetings. Your ideas went unacknowledged. You were copied out of emails, left off the list, passed over again.
That’s not just bad management. That’s exclusion, and it causes real, lasting trauma.
Workplace trauma isn’t only the result of a dramatic incident or an aggressive confrontation. Ongoing, systemic acts of exclusion can be equally damaging — sometimes more so, because they’re harder to name, harder to prove, and easy for organisations to overlook entirely. The harm accumulates quietly, long before anyone notices or intervenes.
Examples of excluding behaviours
Here are nine excluding behaviours that are deeply embedded in corporate culture, and the serious harm they cause.
1. Social exclusion
- Deliberately leaving someone out of group activities, meetings, or informal gatherings (e.g., lunches or after-work events).
- Ignoring or avoiding a colleague in conversations or team collaborations.
- Deliberately omitting someone from group chats, email distribution lists, or decision-making discussions they should be a part of.
2. Undermining professional value
- Excluding an individual from projects or assignments for which they are qualified.
- Failing to acknowledge contributions in team settings.
- Consistently overlooking an employee for promotions or opportunities without explanation.
- Allocating a task or role to someone less qualified.
3. Silencing voices
- Ignoring ideas, input, or feedback during meetings.
- Interrupting or talking over someone repeatedly.
- Failing to provide an opportunity to speak, while allowing others to dominate conversations.
4. Forming cliques
- Forming tight-knit groups that exclude others, creating an “us vs.them” culture.
- Gossiping about, or spreading rumours that alienate an individual.
- Making decisions within a clique and excluding affected colleagues from the process.
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5. Conscious or unconscious bias
- Marginalising someone based on gender, race, age, or any other characteristic, leading to their exclusion. (Systemic Trauma)
- Stereotyping certain groups and dismissing their abilities or insights. Exclusion caused by benevolent sexism such as not considering new mothers for promotion because they may not want the additional responsibility.
- Assigning someone to less-visible or less critical roles due to unconscious bias.
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6. Refusal to collaborate
- Withholding information necessary for others to do their job effectively.
- Refusing to work with certain colleagues because of personal biases.
- Delegating less desirable tasks consistently to a particular person while excluding them from meaningful work.
7. Ghosting
- Purposefully not communicating with or acknowledging a colleague.
- Failing to address or respond to emails, messages, or requests from a specific individual.
8. Isolation by leadership
- Leaders excluding specific team members from decisions, updates, or opportunities.
- Not recognising or involving certain employees in team-building or career development efforts.
- Publicly showing favouritism while sidelining others.
9. Withholding & power playing
- Promotions, salary increases, or career opportunities which could impact financial security.
- Manipulation via gas lighting or other forms of power-playing
- Implicit abuse of authority that forces someone to behave in a certain way otherwise there will be penalties (loss of job is a common one). This could be to act as a leader’s “flying monkey” to behave in a way that is either against an individual’s values, criminal or dangerous. It could also mean pressure to provide sexual favours.
Impact of these behaviours
Exclusionary practices can be just as damaging as pro-active aggressive behaviour, especially if systemically embedded into an organisation’s culture. It can lead to Complex Trauma which can have a profound impact on a person’s emotional, psychological, and physical well-being. This leads to feelings of isolation, reduced self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and a lack of trust in the workplace.
These behaviours damage team cohesion and create a toxic work environment, undermining overall productivity and morale which has a negative impact on business success. The WHO estimates that globally, an estimated 12 billion working days are lost every year to depression and anxiety at a cost of US$ 1 trillion per year in lost productivity.
It is time for organisations to be more proactive in addressing these behaviours, which are so deeply embedded in our corporate cultures.
Is exclusion showing up in your workplace?
It often does — invisibly, incrementally, and at real cost to people and performance. The WHO estimates that depression and anxiety alone drain $1 trillion from the global economy every year in lost productivity.
👉 Download the 3Plus Toxic Workplace Checklist HERE to identify what’s happening in your organisation, and take the first step toward changing it. Schedule a strategy call today.
