Good at Their Job. Killing Your Culture.

Two Employees Every Leader Is Afraid to Confront — and the Framework That Changes Everything

A Leadership Study That Put a Number on Something I’ve Known for Decades

A recent piece in CEOWORLD Magazine on courageous leadership included a finding I want every leader to sit with. Eighty-six percent of employees believe courageous leadership is essential to organizational success. Only 24% say their leaders consistently demonstrate it.

That 62-point gap isn’t a communication problem. It’s not a training problem. It’s a decision problem. Specifically, the decision most leaders are not making about people on their teams who look fine on paper — but are quietly eroding everything else.

The article is blunt about why this happens: “Firing a toxic high performer who makes the numbers requires a willingness to absorb short-term pain for long-term integrity. The incentive system, as currently designed, makes that trade irrational.” I would argue the same is true even before you get to firing. The decision to simply have the conversation — to hold someone accountable for how they show up on the team, not just how they perform individually — is the courageous act most leaders are avoiding.

I want to talk about two specific people I see in almost every organization I work with. They are different in how they damage a culture. But they share one thing: their leaders are afraid to confront them because their individual metrics make the conversation feel unjustifiable. That fear is costing those leaders far more than they realize.

Two People. Both Skilled. Both Quietly Destroying What You’re Building.

The Toxic High Performer

You know this person. Exceptional at the technical part of their job. Strong numbers. Clients love them. On paper, one of your most valuable people. But behind the scenes: they undermine teammates in meetings. They roll their eyes at company initiatives. They make newer employees feel small. They poison conversations in the break room. And everyone on your team knows it — including you.

You keep them because you’re afraid of what you’ll lose. And in doing so, you lose something far more valuable.

Harvard Business School researchers Michael Housman and Dylan Minor analyzed 50,000 employees and found that while a top performer adds significant value, a toxic worker costs approximately $12,489 in turnover costs alone. But the more devastating number: peers of a toxic worker are 54% more likely to quit. Not the toxic person. The good people around them.

The Taker

This one is harder to spot — and in some ways, harder to address. The Taker is not visibly toxic. They don’t have a bad attitude in the traditional sense. Their work is solid. They show up. But they never help anyone else. They always need coverage, support, or a favor from the team, and they almost never reciprocate. When things get heavy, they go quiet. When a teammate is drowning, they find something else to do.

Researchers are now calling this pattern “resenteeism” — employees who complete their tasks and stay within their role while remaining deeply disengaged from the team around them. As Team Bonding’s research shows, one team member doing the bare minimum and not engaging can create real tension across the group and put pressure on everyone else. Over time, they don’t just opt out of team culture. They give others permission to opt out too.

Both of these people are the same problem wearing different faces: great individual output being used as a shield against accountability for how they contribute to the people around them.

What Your Silence Is Actually Costing You

I have written about the bad apple effect in my blog One Bad Employee Can Spread Like Cancer Even in a Healthy Culture. Researcher Will Felps found that in month-long trials, groups with just one negative or disengaged member performed 30 to 40 percent worse than comparable teams. The most disturbing part: the other team members began mirroring the behavior. They didn’t drag the bad actor up. The bad actor dragged them down.

“Eerily surprising was how the others on the team would start to take on his characteristics. When the impostor was a Slacker, the rest of the group lost interest in the project.”  — Will Felps, researcher

For the Toxic High Performer, that cascade sounds like: “If they can be dismissive and still get promoted, why should I bother being constructive?”

For the Taker, it sounds like: “If she never helps anyone and nothing is said, then I’m done covering for people who won’t cover for me.”

Both of those internal conversations are happening on your team right now. And as David Burkus wrote in March 2026, your team is watching your actions and your inaction. Every day you allow either of these people to operate without accountability, you are sending a message about what your culture actually values. That message is louder than anything in your mission statement.

And there is a financial cost beyond morale. The most recent Inc. reporting on workplace data confirms that toxic work culture is 10.4 times more predictive of turnover than compensation. Your best people have options. They are deciding right now whether your culture is worth staying for.

The Reframe That Makes Both Conversations Possible

Here is why most leaders avoid these conversations: they feel personal. Telling someone they have a bad attitude feels like attacking their character. Telling someone they don’t help their teammates feels like asking them to be a different person. And those conversations rarely go well.

But there is a reframe that changes everything. You are not addressing their personality. You are not asking them to be a different person. You are addressing the gap between their current behavior and the culture standard that everyone on your team is held to. And that only works if you have actually defined what that standard is.

In my work, every organization I partner with develops what I call Never & Always standards — the non-negotiable behaviors that define how every member of the team operates. Not every member except your top biller. Not every member except the person who’s been here the longest. Every member. At every level. Without exception.

This matters for a deeper reason too. The way your team treats each other is a direct preview of how they will treat your customers. I have believed this for 25 years and the evidence keeps confirming it. A person who never helps a struggling colleague will not go above and beyond for a struggling customer. You cannot separate the internal culture from the external experience.

“A good customer experience starts with a good employee experience. The CX will never be better than the EX.”  — John DiJulius

What These Standards Look Like in Practice

This is where I want to get specific, because “be a better teammate” is not a standard. It is a wish. Wishes don’t change behavior. Defined, written, trained-on standards do.

For the Toxic High Performer, the relevant standards might include:

Always: Challenge ideas constructively — address the work, never the person.

Never: Dismiss or talk over a teammate’s contribution in a group setting.

Always: Represent our culture in every internal interaction with the same care you bring to client interactions.

For the Taker, the relevant standards might include:

Always: Offer assistance to a teammate before being asked when you can see they are overwhelmed.

Never: Decline a teammate’s request for help during a high-volume period without offering an alternative.

Always: Respond to a colleague’s request within the same timeframe you would expect them to respond to yours.

These are not personality demands. They are behavioral standards. Specific, observable, documentable. And the moment you have them written down and agreed upon as a team, the conversation with either employee changes completely.

With the Toxic High Performer, you are no longer saying “you have a bad attitude.” You are saying: “Our standard is that we challenge ideas, not people. You’re not meeting it. Here is what meeting it looks like, here is the timeline, and here is what happens if it doesn’t change.”

With the Taker, you are no longer saying “you’re selfish.” You are saying: “Our standard is that we show up for each other, not just for our own work. You’re not meeting it. Here’s what that looks like in practice.”

That is coachable. That is documentable. And it removes every excuse for looking the other way.

Three Questions to Ask Yourself Before the Conversation

Have I ever actually defined what being a great team member looks like here?

If the answer is no, then both of these employees have been operating in a vacuum of expectations. Your first step is to build the Never & Always framework before you have the individual conversation. Otherwise you are penalizing behavior against a standard you never communicated.

What signal is my inaction sending to my best people?

Your strongest, most generous team members are watching. They stay late, cover for colleagues, bring their full selves to the work. Every day you allow the Toxic Performer or the Taker to operate unchecked, you are telling those people that their extra effort is optional. Some of them will stop giving it. Others will leave. The data on why employees quit makes clear: they are not leaving for money. They are leaving for cultures that stop feeling worth the effort.

Am I confusing individual output with cultural contribution?

Being excellent at the technical parts of your job is the minimum requirement for being here. It is not, by itself, a contribution to this culture. The organizations that deliver genuinely world-class experiences — that retain their best people and earn the kind of loyalty that makes price irrelevant — are built by people who give more than what is required. Not at the expense of their health. But consistently, deliberately, and with genuine care for the people working alongside them. In The Employee Experience Revolution, I write about what it means to become the best professional decision your employees ever made. You cannot make that promise while allowing either of these people to define what the floor looks like.

Your Culture Is Not What Your Values Poster Says. It’s What You Tolerate.

I have been in this business long enough to have this conversation hundreds of times with leaders across every industry. And the ones who made the courageous call — who defined the standard, had the conversation, and held the line — almost never regret it. What they regret is how long they waited.

Because here is what happens when you finally address it: the Toxic High Performer either rises to the standard or they leave. Either way, your culture gets better. The Taker either discovers what they’re genuinely capable of as a team member — and some of the best contributors I’ve ever seen were former Takers who just needed a clear standard and someone willing to hold them to it — or they reveal that they were never the right fit for this culture.

In both cases, the people watching — your best people, the ones you most need to keep — see something they don’t see often enough: a leader who actually means what they say about culture. That moment, more than any team-building event or engagement survey, is what builds the kind of trust that retains great people and makes great service possible.

“The number one priority for businesses today needs to be focusing on keeping their top talent by improving internally and creating a more positive, collaborative culture.”  — John DiJulius, The DiJulius Group

 

Ready to Build a Culture Where Everyone Is Held to the Same Standard?

If you recognize either of these people on your team — or if you want to build the culture standards that prevent them from taking hold in the first place — my team can help you do both. Let’s build the framework that makes your culture non-negotiable at every level.

→  Schedule a Complimentary Strategy Call  — Start the conversation about your culture gaps

→  Read: One Bad Employee Can Spread Like Cancer  — The research on how one disengaged person rewrites everyone else’s standard

→  Read: Never & Always — Non-Negotiable Culture Standards  — The tool that makes cultural accountability objective, not personal

→  Get The Employee Experience Revolution  — How to become the best professional decision your people ever made

→  Explore the X-Commandment Methodology  — The full framework for world-class internal culture

→  Book John as a Keynote Speaker  — Bring this message to your next leadership or all-hands event