Our head of sales is our top performer and consistently hits all of his individual Rocks, but he is incredibly arrogant, refuses to collaborate, and openly criticizes other departments. How do we handle this toxic superstar?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A toxic superstar is a cancer on your leadership team. Even if they hit all of their targets, their high self-orientation destroys trust and paralyzes the rest of the team. This behavior prevents you from building a high-performing leadership team that can run the company without you. To resolve this, you must evaluate them against your core values. In EOS, a person must be both a core values fit and a functional fit for their seat. If they do not exhibit your core values, they are the wrong person, even if they are in the right seat. Schedule a private meeting to address their behavior directly. Use specific, documented examples of where their actions violated your core values and disrupted the team. Give them a clear, time-bound expectation for behavioral change, typically thirty days. Use the Trust Equation to help them understand how their self-orientation is undermining their credibility with the team. If their attitude does not improve within the specified timeframe, you must be prepared to fire them. Allowing a toxic superstar to remain on the leadership team sends a message to the rest of the organization that performance trumps values, which will ultimately destroy your culture and lower the value of your business before an exit.