Leaders: Stop Covering for Toxic Superstars

These hyper-talented malcontents make everyone around them miserable and do far more damage than most leaders realize

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

We’ve all worked with them. Team members who are extremely talented and hardworking, but are prone to unprofessional outbursts and immature behavior. They’re like a multi-platinum rock star who, right before a big show, trashes his hotel room and the lobby bar, knowing that the consequences will be minimal. They’re the toxic superstars of the workplace.

But rather than trashing a hotel, they will do things like hijack an important meeting with extended rants disparaging their team members and leaders, the company, its customers, the Door Dash driver, and possibly your extended family. Or send an escalating series of aggressively worded emails to air their grievances, copying an ever-expanding collection of senior leaders. While they are not above one-on-one blow-ups, like any proper superstar, they save their best performances for the biggest moments with the highest stakes.

These mercurial colleagues will not limit themselves to language-based attacks, either. Their arsenal of moves might include holding key deliverables hostage to get their way on some aspect of the work, or suddenly dropping off the grid and becoming unreachable at a crucial time on the project when the rest of the team is working furiously and reliant on them to deliver.

The common thread with these workplace temper tantrums is that they come during periods of high stress, and the perpetrators know that their contributions are crucial to the success of the project. I’m not talking about one-time occurrences or minor lapses in decorum. Toxic superstars are defined by repeated, serious bursts of unprofessional behavior, even after they’ve been given correctional feedback (usually more than once).

I am also not talking about illegal actions like physical abuse, sexual harassment, or discrimination. Those are zero-tolerance issues that should immediately be raised to HR or the appropriate organization in your company. But even if they aren’t breaking the law, toxic superstars are still incredibly disruptive. So why don’t companies tire of their act and send them packing?

For one, they’re very talented, and leaders covet top talent (probably too much). And, when they’re not having a conniption, toxic superstars are usually among the hardest-working people on the team.

As a result, their managers and other leaders will often explain-away their bouts of aggressive incivility, saying things like “That’s just how he is”, or “He’s an acquired taste, but really good at what he does”, or “We put too much on her plate so she’s under a lot of stress”. I’ve even seen cases where customers defended wholly unacceptable behavior by someone on a vendor team because they were afraid to lose them and jeopardize their project.

It’s hard to overstate how much harm such toxic employees can cause. According to a working paper by Harvard Business School, employees with higher exposure to toxic team members were 46 percent more likely to be fired for misconduct themselves. Authors Dylan Minor and Michael Housman also found that by not hiring toxic employees, companies can save more than twice as much money as they make by hiring and retaining top performers.

Furthermore, a poll of several thousand workers found that 78 percent of employees felt reduced organizational commitment after experiencing rudeness at work. And studies show that even isolated, brief incidents of uncivil behavior can immediately reduce employee performance.

What Managers Must Do

In my experience, toxic superstars are, unfortunately, very unlikely to respond to coaching. Even if they do tone things down after receiving corrective feedback, they almost always revert to the same disruptive behaviors, and they may need to be managed out. Regardless, it is their manager’s responsibility to not only provide corrective feedback but to follow-up on it until the issue is resolved or the employee has moved on.

This means putting an end to the cover stories that have helped enabled them. The next time there is an incident, don’t make excuses for their behavior with their colleagues. Acknowledge the issue, thank them for speaking up, and let them know you take it seriously.

Then act. Provide the toxic superstar direct, written feedback explaining why their behavior is a problem and the damage it causes. Make it clear that basic civility and professionalism are non-negotiable expectations, and that hard work and top-notch skills will not excuse future incidents.

Given their history of enablement, toxic superstars are usually not great at accepting difficult feedback. So, after they’ve had some time to process it, if they do not accept or respond well to the coaching, you may have to give them feedback on taking feedback.

Once you have delivered corrective feedback, verbally and in writing, if the behavior returns you can decide how likely they are to respond to coaching and move forward accordingly. Just remember, even if you don’t believe they can be coached, it’s your job to give them a reasonable chance to alter their behavior, and to deliver the feedback constructively and with compassion.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to give feedback such as this in writing. Most managers know this. Yet at previous jobs I have witnessed countless cases where feedback about repeated, toxic behavior was only given verbally, and it always plays out in the same problematic way:

1. Verbal coaching brings temporary reprieve from bad behavior (probably)
2. Toxic behavior eventually resurfaces (definitely)
3. Manager decides to take formal action such as putting employee on a performance improvement plan (PIP) or beginning termination proceedings
4. HR is engaged
5. HR informs manager they must first provide the feedback in writing and give the employee a(nother) chance to correct their behavior before any formal action can begin
6. Manager’s soul splinters and turns their laptop into a Horcrux

Bottom line: Give the feedback in writing and spare your soul.

Another common misstep to avoid is moving the employee to another team, either because they sought out a new role to avoid the feedback and consequences, or because their manager proactively facilitated a move to get the problem off their plate. Unless you are plotting a diabolical plan to destroy your company from within, resist the temptation to simply move problem employees around. Giving bad actors a clean slate on a new team is just a different form of enablement, dragging the problem out for the company.

That’s not to say people aren’t entitled to a fresh start in a new environment. They may be. But if you do move them, you still need to provide feedback if you haven’t already. Then, be sure to share the employee’s history and the feedback and expectations that have been given. That way their new manager is not caught by surprise and starting from square one if (when) the behavior surfaces.

Regardless of how optimistic you are about the prospects of rehabilitation, once you’ve identified that you have a toxic superstar on your hands, you should immediately begin implementing a plan to backfill their competencies. Even if the employee is coachable and turns things around, it’s a good idea to build up those crucial competencies anyway.

Finally, this is a good time to consider revising your hiring practices to interview for civility and get rid of the next toxic employee before they’re hired.

We’ve covered several actions for leaders of a toxic superstar, so a summary is in order. Let’s do bullets:

• Put an end to the cover stories
• Provide direct feedback on the behavior and explain what’s expected (verbally and in writing)
• If needed, provide feedback on taking feedback
• Immediately put a mitigation plan in place to backfill the superstar’s competencies
• Follow up with continued coaching until the problem is resolved
• If behavior persists, work with HR to plan next steps such as a PIP or termination
• Consider updating hiring practices to help screen out future toxic candidates

Coaching up a toxic superstar is possible, but it’s not easy and there is no guarantee it will work. But by dealing with them head-on, you will build your credibility as a leader, foster a speak-up environment on your team, and prevent one person from holding your organization hostage with their erratic behavior.

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