The Culture Damage You Don’t See Until It’s Too Late

I was speaking recently with a sales leader who is carrying more weight than most people around him realize, largely because he is caught between what his organization claims to value and what it has quietly learned to tolerate. He leads a team with undeniable talent, including a few salespeople whose numbers consistently outperform the rest of the group and whose ability to close business has made them feel informally untouchable. On the surface, the results look impressive, but beneath those numbers is a poison that is beginning to affect nearly every part of the organization.

Sound familiar? This situation can happen in any organization, and the costs of having “brilliant jerks” in any department can be much greater than you realize. Read on for more about the minefield that managing these types of high performers can create in even the most successful companies.

The Costs No One Sees at First

These top performers I mentioned are terrific at closing deals but routinely neglect the critical tasks that allow the rest of the business to function, including failing to accurately quote deals, delaying follow-ups, and providing scheduling information so late that operations are forced into constant reaction mode. The operations teams are left compensating for avoidable gaps, and clients experience unnecessary friction, and the company is exposed to risks to its reputation.

When these tensions surface, however, those same top performers (“aka brilliant jerks”) are often the loudest in their dissatisfaction, thinking only of their paychecks and not in ways that lead to resolution for their teammates and clients. To top it off, rather than raising concerns directly or constructively, they have been known to reach out to colleagues one by one to vent, gossip, and recruit agreement, creating pockets of resentment that slowly erode morale and trust across the team.

This dynamic is not limited to sales environments. It shows up just as easily in a family entertainment center, where a single person’s output, tenure, or willingness to take undesirable shifts gradually becomes leverage. We have all known these kinds of team members, whether they are high-producing salespeople or veteran employees who quietly accumulate informal power that makes holding them accountable feel risky.

When Influence Replaces Accountability

The surface narrative often sounds reasonable. They do so much. We can’t afford to lose them. No one else will step up the way they do. Over time, however, that narrative rewrites the culture, teaching everyone else that consistency, collaboration, and integrity matter less than individual leverage.

What message is actually being sent when integrity is a stated value (touted in every weekly meeting), yet manipulative or divisive behavior is tolerated because the person is productive, experienced, or difficult to replace? The answer, whether intended or not, is that integrity is conditional and that some people operate under a different set of rules.

The costs of this misalignment rarely appear immediately, but they compound steadily in the form of operational drag, declining morale, eroding trust in leadership, and the eventual loss of steady, high-character contributors who no longer believe the system is fair or sustainable.

When Leadership Has to Do Something

Leaders often hesitate because letting a high performer or long-tenured team member go carries obvious short-term consequences, including temporary revenue dips, scheduling gaps, or the loss of institutional knowledge. That discomfort is real, but it is also temporary, while the cost of inaction grows quietly over time.

At some point, you have to stop asking whether this behavior is disruptive and start asking what you are actively teaching by allowing it to continue.

If you are dealing with a high performer, a long-tenured, or otherwise “reliable” team member whose output has bought them latitude, the first step is to be honest about the full cost of their impacts and your reactions to them. Look beyond revenue numbers or coverage gaps and examine where the strain is actually landing. Pay attention to who is compensating, who is frustrated, and who has quietly stopped speaking up. Those signals tell you far more about organizational health than performance metrics alone.

It’s also a good idea to explicitly and publicly clarify what the role actually requires; not the idealized version of the role or the version tailored to accommodate one individual, but the real expectations that allow the system to function. This might mean tasks related to administration, follow-through, and respect for operational processes, standards, timelines, communication, or even boundaries. Even if you think you’ve been clear about those expectations, sometimes you just need to clear the air and reset them so there is no room for loopholes or ambiguity.