# Workplace Surgery Q2: My top performer is toxic

- **Episode:** [174](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/174.md) (2025-02-25)
- **Type:** workplace-surgery
- **Tags:** toxic-employee, performance, management
- **Time:** 37:23–42:47 (start 2243s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/174?t=2243](https://truthliesandwork.com/174?t=2243)

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[37:23] Leanne Elliott: What you have here, friend, is what is called a toxic superstar. I will leave a link in the show notes to a couple of episodes we've done talking about this, where I'm Which, with, uh, Dr. Ryan Sherman from Hogan Assessments, who was fabulous
[37:35] Al Elliott: Brilliant episode
[37:36] Leanne Elliott: Brilliant episode. Fun facts about toxic superstars. You might think that they're delivering 40% of your outputs, but in terms of actually lost productivity and morale, um, I think it was something like a statistic, like you'd have to hire 4 additional people to your team to make up for the impact of the toxic superstar on lost productivity and performance. So, whilst it feels like this person is delivering a lot, they're taking a lot away as well. What typically happens when, with toxic superstars, and you haven't said much about your organization's context apart from the fact a few managers have kind of dealt with it or stuck with it. It's usually toxic superstars, in my experience, usually tend from people, come from people who join the organization fairly early on in like late startup, early scale-up mode, or indeed from day one
[38:25] Veerle Numan: Yeah
[38:25] Leanne Elliott: have played a significant role in the growth of that business, aren't completely engaged with the— how that organization has evolved in terms of culture, processes, ways of doing things, and just has a level of performance that is good enough that the pain's not— it's not too painful for the manager to have to do anything about it. It's tricky. I think the thing to do is approach this person in the same way you would any other person on your team if there are behaviors that are undesirable. If there are ways of doing things that aren't right, then you have to call it out as you would any other member of the team, and using the right channels in those one-to-ones, informally, formally, whatever it is that the structures you have in place already. The other thing you could do as a tactic, and this will very much depend on the nature of the work and the nature of the organisation, is, is there a role that will better suit that person? So, you said they're bad with customers. Do they need to be—
[39:19] Veerle Numan: Yeah
[39:20] Leanne Elliott: Engaging with customers in any way, or actually could they be in a role that isn't customer-facing but still delivers key outcomes? Could it be that there's a region that person could focus on, or a particular product that person could focus on that is more autonomous, um, less interaction with the team? It's still not an ideal scenario because there will still be resentment towards this person because they're causing trouble. They are toxic. The clue is in the name
[39:47] Al Elliott: Yeah
[39:48] Leanne Elliott: So, it's a short-term fix, but as a way of maybe having an immediate impact, that is also a solution that you could explore if it's possible within the context of your organisation. But really, it's hard, and intuitively it feels like you can't let go of this person, but sometimes people have just got to the natural end of their role with an organisation if they're not willing to engage. And the key here It's going to be how coachable this person is. If the person is showing elements of being open to coaching in terms of their learning, in terms of development, in terms of change, then there is a chance that as a manager, you'll be able to work with them in a way that will facilitate the behaviour changes that you need and whatever else, or any other improvements that you need to see happen. If this person is fundamentally not coachable, and you'll know because you'll be listening to this and you'll either go, oh, actually, do you know what? They can take feedback in the right way
[40:43] Veerle Numan: Yeah
[40:43] Leanne Elliott: in the right circumstances, or you're thinking, no, no, absolutely not, Leanne, this person is not coachable. There's nothing you can do. This person will remain a toxic superstar. And my advice would be to try and manage them out in the best, kindest, most ethical way you can, um, to facilitate them in the most positive way for their next role
[41:03] Al Elliott: I remember, um, when back in 2001, so that's what, 24 years ago, um, when I last worked in an office, I worked in sales Um, office and we used to sell advertising over, um, like basically over the phone. Um, and so we do, we'd be all full-timers and there was this one guy who'd come in for maybe about 2 hours, uh, twice a week and he'd post almost as much business as, as we did for the entire week. And you would've thought, well, that would, you know, rising tide lifts all boats. You would've thought that that would really make us go, well, if he can do it, we can do it. But, but when he left, he flew in, he like was on the phone shouting in the corner
[41:38] Veerle Numan: Yeah
[41:38] Al Elliott: Sold a load of stuff, about 2 hours, did more than we'd done in the entire day, and then went home. And it kind of like, there was a vacuum when he left. There was just the whole, all of us were like, felt down and depressed because he's obviously very good at it. He's got, he was allowed to come in for 2 hours twice a week. Um, he was allowed to do whatever he wanted and all of us just felt really depressed at the end of it. And so it, it didn't help in any way. It did the opposite, exactly what you just said there. So
[42:06] Veerle Numan: Yeah
[42:07] Al Elliott: Um, I don't know whether that story is useful or not, but certainly it's like a real-life application of what Leanne just said
[42:12] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, and it, and it is, it's that, it's that black and white, Al, isn't it, really? There's nothing really you can, with the type of person, unless they're, they've got a reason to want to change, then they're not going to. The key question you have to ask yourself is, as a manager, can I coach this person in behaviours that I want to see, and behaviours we want to be reflective of our culture, our ways of working, the way we work? together as a team? If the answer to that question is a hard no, and you've done the work and research to know that that's a hard no, then really it's about focusing your efforts on the rest of the team and managing that person through the formal processes you have in place