It is not just the managers. It is the price you pay for selling your time. The ICs under a bad manager have it even worse. And it is also not like non toxic work environments don’t exist. Usually companies benefit from the toxicity. A toxic place usually allows profitable organizations to siphon off more value and usually companies gravitate to a point where that siphoning is maximized while maintaining steady stream of people to employ. Of course the not so profitable will crumble. My sympathies and best wishes for you but definitely not for you as a “manager” but for facing less than fulfilling work environment.
The problem is that people can survive with food on their table and roof on their heads while feeling miserable. So there will always be people willing to offer themselves up that allows people who can siphon off value to profit even more and become more powerful. It is a powerful flywheel which is quite hard to stop in practice.
