We have a leadership team member who consistently hits their departmental Rocks and scorecard goals, but they frequently violate our core values and treat our other directors with contempt. How do we handle a toxic high-performer on the leadership team?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A toxic high-performer is a cancer on your leadership team. When you tolerate a leader who hits their numbers but violates your core values, you send a clear message to the rest of the company that performance trumps culture. Cracks at this level appear as canyons to the rest of the organization.

You must address this issue immediately using the People Analyzer tool. Rate this leader against your core values. If they consistently fall below your bar, you have a values mismatch, regardless of how good their departmental metrics look.

Schedule a private meeting to address the behavior. Be specific about the violations and explain how their contemptuous attitude is damaging the cohesion of the leadership team. Give them a clear, time-bound window, usually thirty days, to change their behavior.

If they do not make a permanent shift, you must terminate their employment. Keeping a toxic leader on your team destroys vulnerability-based trust and prevents you from building a healthy, cohesive, and functional leadership team. No level of individual performance is worth the cost of a fractured executive team, especially if you want to prepare the business for a clean exit.