Through the years of working with executives in a variety of roles and businesses, I’ve been involved in—and have witnessed—a lot of terminations.
And the hardest ones aren’t who most people think.
It’s not the underperforming division president who’s missed their numbers two years in a row. It’s not the struggling salesperson or the disappointing operations manager.
It’s the opposite.
It’s the high performer. The one who exceeds expectations year after year. The one who drives results. The one everyone points to and says, “We need more like them.”
But underneath the impressive performance, something else often is happening.
These company stars start bending the rules. Then they break them. They travel first class when everyone else flies coach. They hire a client’s unqualified relative because they “owe them one.” They promote others based on relationships instead of merit. They use company resources for personal convenience—and justify it because of their results.
And leadership, in many cases, tolerates it. Not because they don’t see it. They absolutely do! They tolerate this behavior because they’ve fallen in love with the outcomes.
The Part That Gets Missed
While leadership is rationalizing this behavior, everyone else is watching it. And taking notes. They see two systems: one for the high performer and one for everyone else. They see behavior that wouldn’t be tolerated for a second if anyone else did it.
And slowly, something erodes.
Not performance. Trust.
And once trust erodes, culture follows. Then engagement. Then accountability. Until one day, the cost is finally too high and the rule-breaking executive must pay the price.
The Pattern I See Every Time
When it finally happens—when the executive is let go—I ask the same question: “When did you first know this was a problem?”
The answer is almost always the same: “At least two or three years ago.”
The hardest person to fire isn’t the lowest performer. It’s the one whose results cause you to look the other way.
But here’s the truth: Performance never gives someone permission to violate your company culture, to play by different rules, to set themselves apart from everyone else.
And every day you tolerate this sort of behavior, you’re not protecting the business—you’re weakening it. Because what you allow at the top doesn’t stay contained. It spreads. And that creates all kinds of problems throughout your organization.
And that’s why the most expensive person you’ll ever fire is rarely the one producing the fewest results.
It’s the one producing the most.
Because by the time you finally let them go, they’ve already taught everyone else what leadership is willing to tolerate.
And that’s a lesson no organization can afford.