Toxic work cultures in Singapore rarely announce themselves openly. They do not appear in the company values on the website or in the glossy recruitment brochure. Instead, they live in quiet details: the colleague who checks messages at midnight out of fear, the manager whose presence makes a room noticeably tense, the high performer who cries in the toilet but insists that everything is fine. On the surface, the city is efficient, stable, and prosperous. Beneath that surface, many workplaces run on a mix of fear, hierarchy, and silent resignation. Understanding why this happens is not about blaming individuals. It is about recognising how history, systems, and unspoken beliefs shape behaviour at work.
For decades, the national story in Singapore has placed a high premium on stability. Study hard, land a respectable job, stay out of trouble, and build a secure life. Parents repeat this message to their children. Schools reinforce it. Many current leaders are products of that exact path. When security is the central promise, the fear of losing it becomes a powerful force. Employees, even very capable ones, grow up with the sense that a misstep can derail their future. In that environment, people learn to tolerate more than they should. They ignore cutting remarks from a supervisor, accept weekend calls as normal, and swallow discomfort because the pay is good and the market feels small. Over time, this survival mindset becomes so common that it starts to feel like the natural cost of having a “good job.”
Founders and managers inherit this psychology whether they notice it or not. A startup may claim to value openness and psychological safety, but if its leaders came from rigid corporate environments, the old patterns tend to reappear under stress. They may genuinely believe that their culture is different, yet default to behaviour that sends the opposite message. When employees have spent their whole careers in systems where speaking up carries a risk, a single presentation on values does not dissolve the fear. The past continues to sit in the room during every meeting.
Hierarchy deepens this dynamic. Singaporean society, like many in the region, has a long tradition of respect for authority. In the workplace, this often translates into an outsized focus on titles and seniority. People sit up straighter when the director arrives. Junior employees wait for the most senior person to share an opinion before they dare to voice their own. Feedback is wrapped in soft language and disclaimers to avoid appearing confrontational or ungrateful. From the outside, this can look like smooth, efficient order. Meetings run on time. Voices are calm. There are no obvious arguments.
Yet politeness can hide deep resentment. When decisions are handed down from the top with little room for challenge, those closest to the ground feel invisible. They see problems early but feel uncomfortable raising them. They watch poor decisions unfold and then watch leaders blame “execution” instead of strategy. Over time, people stop offering dissenting views, and the real work of debate moves into private chats and corridor conversations. Gossip replaces honest conflict. Cynicism replaces ownership. Toxicity grows in these shadows, not in dramatic explosions but in slow erosion.
Another powerful driver is the fixation on numbers at the expense of people. Singapore is known for its efficiency, targets, and metrics. Many organisations celebrate the individual who can hit aggressive goals, sometimes regardless of how those goals are achieved. The “toxic high performer” becomes a familiar character. This person may belittle colleagues, dominate meetings, or create a climate of fear, yet is protected as long as they deliver results. Their behaviour is rationalised as tough love or strong leadership. Public shaming in meetings is rebranded as “raising standards.” Chronic overwork is rebranded as “short term hustle” that never seems to end.
These choices send a clear signal. The organisation may say that values matter, but in practice, output is what gets rewarded. Employees quickly learn that being kind, collaborative, or fair will not save them if they miss a target, while a colleague who destroys morale might still be promoted if they bring in revenue. In such an environment, harm to people is treated as collateral damage. The result is not just burnout but a deep moral fatigue, where individuals feel pressured to abandon their better instincts simply to keep up.
The structure of the local job market amplifies these forces. Singapore is a small city state with tight networks, especially in fields like finance, consulting, technology, and media. Within each of these circles, “good employers” are limited and names travel quickly. Many professionals fear that leaving a company under difficult circumstances will damage their reputation or close doors in the future. Those on work passes face an additional layer of vulnerability, since their right to remain in the country is tied to their employment. Others carry responsibilities for mortgages, ageing parents, or young children, and do not feel free to take career risks.
Because of these constraints, employees often endure poor culture far longer than they would like. They tell themselves to wait for the bonus, for the next review cycle, for a better market, for a quieter family year. Their silence is not a sign that everything is acceptable. It is a sign that the cost of speaking up or leaving feels too high. Unfortunately, leadership can misread this silence as satisfaction or at least consent. A common rationalisation appears: if things were truly bad, people would leave. That statement may be comforting, but it ignores the complex realities of constraint and fear.
Founders in Singapore are not separate from these dynamics. Many early stage companies recreate the very patterns they once criticised in big corporates. When survival pressure kicks in, long hours become a badge of honour, and “we are a family” slowly turns into “we sacrifice everything together.” A brilliant but abrasive salesperson is tolerated because “we need this quarter.” Co founder conflicts are avoided because confrontation feels risky. Processes from past corporate lives are pasted into the new environment without rethinking whether they fit a smaller, more fragile team. The result is a culture that looks energetic and exciting on the outside but feels unstable and draining for those inside.
There is also a regional discomfort with open conflict that shapes how issues are handled. Direct feedback is often seen as impolite or aggressive. Managers hesitate to deliver hard messages. Team members assume that raising a concern will create personal tension that they would rather avoid. Problems are allowed to linger in the name of harmony. People learn to “read between the lines” instead of asking clear questions. Those who are skilled at managing perceptions and relationships often progress faster than those who are focused on difficult but necessary truths. This quiet avoidance does not prevent conflict. It merely pushes it underground, where it fuels passive resistance, whisper networks, and simmering grudges.
Taken together, these factors form a powerful pattern. A deep fear of losing stability makes people reluctant to speak or leave. A strong preference for hierarchy and deference suppresses honest challenge. A metrics first mindset rewards outcomes while overlooking harm. A small job market and visa constraints limit mobility. A discomfort with direct conflict keeps problems from being named and resolved. Toxic work cultures in Singapore do not exist because people here are uniquely unkind or unprincipled. They exist because the system, as it is currently designed and experienced, makes certain unhealthy behaviours more likely and less risky than they should be.
Yet this pattern is not inevitable. Leaders who want to build healthier organisations in this context need to start by acknowledging the reality rather than importing generic culture playbooks. It is important to recognise that employees have grown up in systems that teach caution and compliance. Instead of dismissing that as weakness, thoughtful founders can design structures that actively lower the cost of honesty. This involves setting firm boundaries around behaviour that is not acceptable, even when it comes from high performers, and then following through consistently. It involves shifting performance conversations away from a narrow focus on numbers and towards a more complete view that includes how those numbers are achieved.
It also requires a willingness from leaders to sit with discomfort. Employees who finally feel safe enough to speak may offer feedback that stings. They may point out that a founder’s rushed comment in a meeting created unnecessary fear, or that a leader’s constant urgency is burning people out. In those moments, the instinct to defend intentions or question resilience is strong. However, genuine cultural change demands that leaders resist that instinct and instead examine the systems and expectations that produced the problem. This is not about accepting every criticism as absolute truth. It is about taking responsibility for one’s influence and adjusting the environment so that similar harm is less likely to recur.
Toxic work cultures in Singapore are rooted in history, policy, and social norms that sit far beyond any single company. No founder or manager can rewrite all of that alone. However, each organisation can decide whether to simply mirror the surrounding environment or to offer a different way of working. A culture that relies on fear and exhaustion may function for a time, and may even achieve impressive short term results, but it is fragile at the core. A culture built on clarity, fairness, and genuine respect is harder to design and slower to prove itself, yet it stands a better chance of attracting and retaining people who are not merely surviving at work, but actually alive to the possibility of doing meaningful, sustainable work over the long term.
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