Episode 4: The Problem With High Performers

Welcome to What They Don’t Tell You — a leadership podcast from Deabadh Group.

In Episode 4, William Warren explores a leadership paradox that many organizations struggle to address: what happens when exceptional performance comes without alignment.

High performers are often admired and rewarded. They deliver results, exceed targets, and rise quickly through organizations.

But when strong performance is tolerated alongside behavior that undermines the wider system, the long-term cost can be significant.

From weakened governance to reduced collaboration and increased turnover, organizations sometimes discover too late that individual performance has been masking systemic risk.

This episode explores the difficult leadership judgment required to distinguish between true value and short-term output, and why the courage to act early often defines the effectiveness of boards and CEOs.

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Key Reflection From the Episode

“Performance that corrodes capability is not performance. It is deferred risk.”

About Deabadh Group

Deabadh Group works with CEOs, boards, and leadership teams to strengthen executive capability and navigate complex organizational challenges.

Through leadership advisory, executive search, and leadership development, Deabadh helps organizations align leadership, culture, and performance to achieve sustainable results.

Learn more at https://www.deabadhgroup.com

Full Episode Transcript

Below is the full transcript of Episode 4 of What They Don’t Tell You.

Welcome to What They Don’t Tell You from Deabadh Group. This is a podcast about leadership as it’s lived.

I’m William Warren.

I work with leaders who carry real responsibility for people, for decisions and for consequences. In these episodes, we explore the parts of leadership that usually don’t get said out loud — the doubts, the trade-offs, the weight of judgment, and what it actually costs to try to do the right thing in a complex and changing business world.

These reflections are shaped by more than 20 years of work with leaders across 60 countries.

I’m telling it like it is.

Let’s get into it.

In this episode, I want to talk about high performers.

More specifically, the risk that comes when performance is tolerated without alignment.

We love high performers — those on the way up the corporate totem pole. We call them next-generation leaders, emerging leaders, or high potentials, and we often accept a few rough edges as the inevitable flip side of strong performance.

We also admire those in the C-suite who deliver consistently strong results.

We all know the type.

They never seem to have a bad quarter. They appear to glide effortlessly through the corporate ranks toward the upper levels of leadership.

Take a couple of examples.

The top sales professionals — the one percent who never miss target. They don’t rely on a single heroic deal. They build structured pipelines, manage energy carefully, qualify opportunities ruthlessly, and understand timing.

From the outside it can look like charisma.

In reality it is disciplined process, persistence, and preparation.

Or think about the championship quarterback type of leader — the Tom Brady figure of the corporate world.

Not always the most naturally gifted, but obsessive about preparation. Obsessive about small gains. Relentless about reading the field before the snap.

They win because they do the small things well.

They reduce unforced errors.

They see risk early, pivot quickly, protect the downside, and when the moment comes, they execute without hesitation.

Both of these kinds of leaders are often described as lucky.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Luck is often what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

These leaders manage variance. They understand signal versus noise. They invest disproportionately in preparation. They build teams that absorb shock and they remain emotionally regulated under pressure.

So all of this sounds positive.

But as with most things in leadership, it is more complicated than that.

We tend to assume that high performance equals high value.

Often that is true.

But not always.

Research from Harvard Business School has shown that high performers who violate behavioral norms can cost organizations more than they contribute over time. Increased turnover, reduced collaboration, and lower team productivity can outweigh an individual’s output.

In some studies, replacing a toxic high performer increased overall team performance by up to 30 percent.

That is not marginal.

That is structural.

And yet boards hesitate.

Why?

Loss aversion.

Loss of face.

Inertia.

Politics.

Fear.

It all comes down to the difference between playing not to lose and playing to win.

We overestimate what we might lose immediately.

We underestimate what we are slowly eroding.

Performance buys tolerance.

Until the cost of tolerance exceeds the cost of courage.

I once worked with a board where one executive generated close to 30 percent of group profit.

The numbers were exceptional.

But within eighteen months, three senior leaders left the organization.

Exit interviews used the same word.

Exhausting.

The board knew there was damage.

But removing him felt like cutting off oxygen.

So they did nothing.

They focused on other priorities.

Six months later, two key clients followed one of the departing team members.

The organization had confused dependency with strength.

When one person becomes indispensable, governance quietly weakens.

High performance can also distort culture.

In another organization, the strongest commercial performer was also the most feared voice in the room.

Targets were hit.

But debate stopped.

Innovation slowed.

No policy changed, but behavior on the ground did.

And behavior sets standards far more powerfully than values statements ever will.

High performance without alignment is not strength.

It is a fault line.

For boards and new CEOs, this can be one of the hardest leadership decisions.

If a senior manager has poor results and misaligned values, the decision is relatively clear.

If someone misses targets but lives the organization’s values, they often receive another chance.

The difficult case is the high performer who delivers results while quietly ignoring behavioral norms.

The individual who treats rules as optional.

Who takes visible pride in being an outlier.

And justifies it all through performance.

When I ask experienced CEOs about their biggest leadership regrets, many say the same thing.

“I should have acted on people issues sooner.”

Or more simply:

“I was too slow.”

They wanted certainty before making what felt like a destructive decision.

But waiting rarely makes the decision easier.

There is an old observation often attributed to Confucius:

You can learn from your own mistakes.

But you will never have enough time to make them all.

Research from McKinsey on long-term organizational performance consistently shows that organizations with strong bench strength outperform their peers.

Because if everything depends on one person, the organization is not resilient.

It is exposed.

So the leadership question is simple.

But not easy.

Are we rewarding output?

Or are we strengthening the system?

Because performance that corrodes capability is not performance.

It is deferred risk.

If any of this resonated with you, you can find more about our work at deabadhgroup.com.

Thanks for listening.

Until next time.