5: When You're In a Toxic Workplace (Dr. Meryl Herr)

Chris interviews Dr. Meryl Herr about her new book, When Work Hurts: Building Resilience When You're Beat Up or Burnt Out. Hear about how the biblical story of Nehemiah gives us a paradigm for faithfulness in a toxic work environment, how our sense of calling can be a double-edged sword, and how to discern when it’s time to leave.

Meryl Herr (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) owns and runs The GoodWorks Group LLC, a consulting firm specializing in educational program planning and evaluation. She previously served as director of research and resources at Fuller Seminary's Max De Pree Center for Leadership, where she conducted research and created resources to help Christian marketplace leaders integrate their faith with their work.

You can subscribe to Meryl’s Substack to get a free Work Hurt Assessment.

Sources: 1 Corinthians 8:1 (ESV)

Nehemiah 4 (NIV)

Meryl Herr, When Work Hurts: Building Resilience When You're Beat Up or Burnt Out (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2025).

Donald Sull, Charles Sull, William Cipolli, and Caio Brighenti, “Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Culture,” MIT Sloan Management Review, March 16, 2022. 

Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970). 

Alison Cook, I Shouldn’t Feel This Way: Name What's Hard, Tame Your Guilt, and Transform Self-Sabatoge into Brave Action (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2024). 

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