Toxic leadership undermines a once-great culture - Anonymous employee Sonar Employee Review

1.0
Apr 17, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

An ever-dwindling number of good people trying to do a good job, and being undercut at almost every point by upper-level and executive leadership that is ineffective and ill-equipped to lead a once proud organization.

Cons

Before you think about interviewing at Sonar, read the book "Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (and how to fix it)" by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. Better yet, watch the TED talk on YouTube under the same name. The executive team takes absolutely no ownership. The CEO has demonstrated his ineffectiveness as a leader by the steady hiring of sycophants to insulate him from any accountability. Every single replacement hire for ELT has been less equipped to support the organization than the person they replaced. Those who were replaced were often trying to support the business, culture, and the employees, only to find themselves ousted with little ceremony. Sonar's leadership team is ineffective. Regardless of any financial strength or product positioning, their overall lack of emotional intelligence is putting the company at significant risk, as well as the livelihoods of the employees who are trying to work under increasingly constrained and demanding conditions. I have personally witnessed public shaming and blaming of individual contributors for the failures of leadership to "meet our objectives." Blaming single people? Really? What is even more dangerous is the levels of insulation that ELT are creating. Many of them have direct subordinates who are empowered to dictate the livelihoods of individual contributors based on their own poor understanding of what these people do on a daily basis. This is how toxicity festers. When I joined Sonar, there was a culture. People loved working here. The culture was not perfect, but it was intentional in its design. It has been replaced by a personality-driven culture that - in many levels of leadership - smacks of narcissistic personality disorder. Promotions are nonexistent. Growth is no longer possible here. When experienced people leave, the organization tries to backfill them with less qualified individuals who are undermarket, and then held to the output expectations of those experienced predecessors. In many groups, the expectation is to work at all hours of the day, even on holidays and weekends. In the countries where they have employment laws, the leadership is implicitly pushing certain employees not to full report their time worked - and then trying to single out and remove individuals who are working their 40 hours because they are not giving more of their time for free.

Explore other reviews about Sonar

5.0
Jun 29, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Excellent strategy, culture, and team. You must have the startup mentality.

Cons

Lots of changes and growth challenges.

1.0
Jun 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Got to go to Disneyland Paris a couple of times.

Cons

Career growth and internal mobility did not match the expectations that were communicated to me when I joined. I relocated across the country in part because I believed there would be a realistic path to transition from SDR into a Sales Engineer role. Early conversations with leadership were encouraging, and I received support from my manager, senior sales leadership, and the SE organization regarding that goal. I was told that the primary requirement was completing the company's one-year minimum tenure before changing teams. To prepare, I invested significant personal time into technical training, completed cloud computing and solutions architect coursework, conducted product demonstrations beyond the normal scope of my role, and maintained regular development discussions with SE leadership. After reaching the one-year mark, the timeline for pursuing the opportunity continued to shift. First, additional approvals were needed. Later, I was told organizational changes needed to occur before a position would become available. Several months later, I was informed that there were no open positions and no clear timeline for when one might exist. What was most disappointing was not that I wasn't selected for the role, but that I never had the opportunity to formally interview after spending more than a year preparing for the transition with leadership's encouragement. Based on my experience, employees interested in internal mobility should seek clear commitments regarding hiring plans, role availability, and promotion timelines rather than relying on informal support or verbal encouragement.

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