> Are you seeing any of the content or are you seeing the toxicity?

To tell the truth... yeah I do, for one. The toxity itself is content, and the meaning of that content is that something is VERY wrong with the team culture. This is being told in the most direct way imaginable.

Question is, are you actually able to handle the situation where local culture went a very wrong way ? Not to mention considering the possibility to begin with?

Each time this happened in my case, all predicted screwups coming from team decisions actually happened. So you can't just say that 'that guy' was wrong. To make things more clear, all the other members of the team were incapable of seeing these screwups coming because of sharing common groupthink with common blind spots. That warm feeling of being part of the team and sharing common groupthink has equal levels of blessing and a curse, and while it comforts the mind, it also brainwashes and reinforces blindness in certain places for the whole team.

The team where everybody understands each other with half a word and does not let any outliers in could be as good as dead while not being aware of it.

Does this all sounds toxic ? Could be. But that does not cancel out the content part, and that part is much more important.

On the other hand (light sarcarm warning), if there is indeed no leader in the project who can handle toxic content, than that already disabled team won't become much worse after removing the toxic/outlier person. Those folks could be greatest assets and provide insight into blind spots of the team, but you need to be able to handle them. Personally if necessary. Everybody who can spot your blind spots is important.