A friend of mine recently told me of the change in her work environment that happened with the addition of one female co-worker. Just one. Female. Assistant. What was once a team-oriented, respect-and-support-each-other work climate went toxic—because of the influence of one woman. Ms. Toxic’s continual gossiping about the other women and backbiting created “toxic shock” in a matter of 3-4 weeks! How does that happen? From the moment she stepped into her new job, Ms. Toxic began targeting her fellow administrative personnel (mainly women) with harsh criticism. The rest of her work team didn’t know what to do. They were in shock. No one had done this before in…