Every leader eventually meets a paradox that no leadership manual fully prepares them for: the team member whose performance is exceptional and whose behaviour is corrosive. On the surface, this person delivers results others cannot match. They close deals, write flawless code, or bring a creative spark that wins awards. Yet behind those achievements lies a wake of conflict, mistrust, and silence.

Colleagues complain quietly. Meetings feel heavier when they are present. Talented peers withdraw, unwilling to compete with the cutting remarks or the unpredictable moods. The atmosphere shifts from collaboration to self-protection. And the leader feels torn: do I risk losing one of my top performers, or risk losing the rest of the team?

This is more than a performance management challenge. It is a test of leadership integrity. Because how we respond to a talented but toxic team member reveals what we truly value: do we prize results above relationships? Do we define success as individual output, or as collective flourishing?

It also exposes the hidden costs of our choices. Research consistently shows that a single toxic employee can have a disproportionate effect on turnover, morale, and productivity. Yet numbers alone cannot capture the full price: the erosion of trust, the fragmentation of community, the quiet resignation of colleagues who decide it is safer to contribute less.

So, the question ‘How do I deal with a talented but toxic team member?’ cannot be answered with one tactic or one policy. It needs a range of perspectives. In this article, we will explore five lenses through which to view this dilemma:

1. The cost lens: making visible the financial and performance trade-offs

2. The relationship lens: understanding how toxicity undermines trust and belonging

3. The power lens: deciding between control and stewardship

4. The possibility lens: reframing the issue as an invitation, not just a problem

5. The collective lens: protecting the whole beyond the individual

Through these lenses, we will see not only what leaders must do, but what choices they are invited to make about the culture they are building.

Lens 1: The cost lens – seeing the hidden trade-offs

At first glance, a high-performing but toxic team member may seem like a bargain: they consistently exceed their targets, deliver technical excellence, or generate breakthrough ideas. Their metrics sparkle. But the arithmetic is misleading. When organisations study the true costs, a different picture emerges.

One Harvard Business School study found that avoiding a toxic employee saved a company US $12,489, compared with a gain of only US $5,303 from hiring a top 1% performer (Housman & Minor, 2015). In other words, removing or avoiding toxicity creates more than twice the value of hiring brilliance. The reason is clear: while one person’s results are measurable, the losses caused by their behaviour ripple invisibly across the team.

MIT Sloan research echoes this: toxic culture is 10.4 times more predictive of employee attrition than compensation (Sull, Sull & Zweig, 2022). It is not low pay that drives people away; it is the experience of disrespect, fear, or exclusion.

And the losses are not abstract. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) estimated that over five years, toxic workplace cultures cost U.S. businesses US$223 billion in turnover (SHRM, 2019). Another analysis calculated that even a single toxic worker in a 20-person team can cost US $25,600 annually in absenteeism and voluntary turnover,  scaling up to more than US $1.2 million per year for a 1,000-person organisation (Fama Technologies, 2021).

The arithmetic is sobering: one person’s high output can never justify the systemic losses created by their toxicity.

Workplace dynamics

The costs show up in ways that leaders may overlook until it is too late:

• Erosion of retention. Talented colleagues quietly resign, unwilling to endure the environment. Exit interviews rarely state “toxic colleague” explicitly, but patterns become visible: “I didn’t feel valued,” “It was draining,” or “I couldn’t see a future here.”

• Hidden productivity loss. Those who stay often disengage. They contribute less, avoid cross-functional projects, or keep ideas to themselves. A toxic remark may silence not only the speaker but also the five people who decide never to volunteer again.

• Lost customers. Toxic employees may treat clients well, but when toxicity spreads internally, service quality drops. Customers pick up on the tension, inconsistencies, or mistakes that result from low morale.

• Recruitment challenges. Word spreads faster than leaders expect. Toxic behaviour leaves reputational scars that make hiring harder. Candidates ask quietly: “What’s the culture really like there?”

• Leadership distraction. Finally, the leader themselves spends disproportionate time managing conflict, mediating disputes, and holding damage-control conversations. This opportunity cost ,  time not spent on strategy or development ,  rarely appears in dashboards, but it is one of the heaviest burdens.

In short: toxicity is never contained. It leaks into retention, innovation, client experience, and leadership bandwidth.

The leader’s choice

Leaders confronting a talented but toxic employee face multiple paths:

1. Ignore the costs. Many leaders rationalise: “They bring in the revenue,” or “We can’t afford to lose them right now.” This choice may seem practical, but it signals to the rest of the team that results outweigh dignity. Over time, it breeds cynicism: “Why bother giving feedback if behaviour doesn’t matter?”

2. Rely on numbers alone. Some leaders attempt to justify their decisions with cost-benefit spreadsheets, comparing the revenue generated against the costs incurred. While helpful, this risks reducing people to financial units and missing the intangible cost: trust.

3. Face the complete arithmetic. The courageous choice is to name all the costs ,  financial and relational ,  and bring them into the open. This does not immediately dictate removal, but it creates clarity: we can no longer pretend this is a neutral trade-off.

4. Choose culture as the asset. The deepest choice is not about one employee but about what the leader values most. Do we want a culture where output excuses harm? Or one where the standard of respect is non-negotiable? This choice shapes not only the current team but also the organisation’s identity.

In the end, the decision is less about an individual and more about the story the leader wants the team to tell about what counts here.

Leadership moves

• Map the hidden costs. Collaborate with HR to calculatebsenteeism, and lost productivity associated with the turnover, a this person. Include opportunity costs like leadership time.

• Name the trade-offs transparently. Share with peers or your own leader the full costs, so the dilemma isn’t reduced to “performance vs complaints.”

• Set a public standard. State clearly to the team: “Performance matters here, but never at the expense of trust.” This frames the decision as cultural, not personal.

Reflective Question: What story do I want my team to tell about what we value most, that results in harm, or that trust is as measurable as revenue?

Lens 2: The relationship lens – trust as currency

If cost is the visible arithmetic of toxicity, trust is the invisible one. It is the social fabric that enables teams to take risks, share half-formed ideas, and admit mistakes without fear. Research on high-performing teams repeatedly confirms this: the strongest predictor of effectiveness is psychological safety, the belief that the team is a safe place for interpersonal risk-taking (Rozovsky, 2015).

Toxic behaviour corrodes this safety immediately. Sarcasm in a meeting, a dismissive email, or a colleague who publicly mocks mistakes sends a signal: this is not a safe place to be vulnerable. Over time, trust thins out until it becomes easier to stay silent than to contribute.

The numbers show the damage. A landmark study on workplace incivility found that 38% of employees decreased their work effort after being treated rudely, 47% decreased their time at work, and 12% left their jobs entirely (Porath & Pearson, 2013). These are not minor effects;  they represent a systemic collapse of discretionary effort.

A team with no trust may still function, but it will never thrive. It will deliver the minimum, play it safe, and avoid conflict   until innovation and collaboration wither.

Workplace dynamics

Toxicity shows up in relational patterns more than in dramatic events. Leaders who listen closely hear these dynamics:

• Withdrawal in meetings. Once-engaged colleagues stop speaking. They fold their arms, avoid eye contact, or turn off their cameras in virtual meetings. The reason is not a lack of ideas, but fear of being cut down.

• Workarounds and avoidance. Colleagues start rerouting communication to bypass the toxic person. They exclude them from group chats, avoid pairing on projects, or create “shadow channels” of work. These workarounds may keep peace in the short term but fragment the team long term.

• Resentment and fairness gaps. Trust isn’t only about behaviour,  it’s also about perceived fairness. When colleagues see that toxic behaviour goes unchecked while others are held accountable, resentment festers. It becomes harder to believe the leader when they say, “We value respect.”

• Leader blind spots. Many toxic employees know how to “manage upwards.” They are polite, respectful, and even charming with leaders, while being dismissive with peers. Leaders are left wondering, “Are these complaints exaggerated?” This split reality deepens mistrust: the team feels unseen.

These dynamics compound over time. A leader may think they are managing “one difficult personality,” but in truth, they are stewarding a team where trust is draining away.

The leader’s choice

Confronting toxicity through the relationship lens is not just about behaviour management; it’s about deciding what kind of relational environment to protect. Leaders have several choices:

1. Preserve the performer’s results. The leader protects output and tolerates relational damage, hoping to contain it. This choice prioritises numbers over people and tells the team: “Trust is optional here.”

2. Offer private correction. The leader addresses the toxic employee one-on-one, hoping feedback will create change. This can work, but if behaviour persists, the team reads inaction as complicity: “Nothing really changes.”

3. Rebuild trust publicly. The leader convenes the team to name what builds and breaks trust, making it a shared responsibility. This distributes accountability and signals that trust is not the leader’s private concern but the group’s shared standard.

4. Embed trust in the system. Leaders can institutionalise relational expectations,  linking evaluations and promotions not just to output but to collaboration and respect. This signals that trust is not sentimental but structural.

The deeper question is this: Do I want a team that produces results but avoids each other, or a team that risks and grows because trust is intact?

Leadership moves

• Run a “trust inventory.” Ask each team member privately: “When do you feel most able to contribute here? When do you feel least safe?” Aggregate themes to bring to the group.

• Name the behaviour gap. If the toxic employee is respectful upwards but harsh downwards, reflect the split: “I see two versions of you. What’s going on?”

• Protect dignity in the moment. Don’t let sarcasm or dismissiveness pass in meetings. Naming it in real time (“Let’s respect every contribution”) signals that trust is non-negotiable.

Reflective Question: Am I prioritising immediate performance, or am I prioritising the trust that enables everyone to contribute their best?

Lens 3: The power lens – control vs. stewardship

When faced with a toxic high performer, many leaders instinctively tighten control. They implement stricter monitoring, set formal performance improvement plans, and issue sharper warnings. Control promises predictability: if I enforce hard enough, behaviour will change.

But control has limits. It may suppress toxic behaviour temporarily, but rarely shifts the underlying mindset. In fact, over-reliance on control can reinforce dependency;  the message becomes: I will police behaviour, and you will comply (or resist). Meanwhile, the rest of the team is left as bystanders, watching the leader manage what they themselves experience daily.

An alternative frame is stewardship. Stewardship shifts responsibility for culture from the leader alone to the team as a whole. Instead of “I will fix this,” stewardship says, We are all accountable for the way we work together. This move is harder because it requires convening honest dialogue and trusting the group to own the norms. But it is also more sustainable: a culture policed by one leader dies with that leader; a culture stewarded collectively can endure.

Workplace dynamics

The tension between control and stewardship shows up in recognisable patterns:

• The “heroic manager” trap. Leaders spend disproportionate time monitoring and correcting the toxic employee’s behaviour. Other team members quietly conclude: It’s not our job to hold each other accountable;  it’s the boss’s. This deepens passivity.

• Silent collusion. When peers feel it’s the leader’s sole role to confront toxicity, they retreat. They may complain privately but rarely intervene directly. The toxic dynamic persists not only because of one person’s actions, but also because of the group’s silence.

• Erosion of credibility. Every time a leader ignores a toxic remark, makes excuses for poor behaviour, or fails to act after promising change, credibility thins. Eventually, the team believes: Our leader protects results, not us. Trust in leadership, not just in the toxic peer, is lost.

• The enforcement spiral. Leaders who double down on control may issue more rigid rules, stricter procedures, or frequent check-ins. The toxic employee learns to comply in public while venting in private. The system grows heavier without fundamental transformation.

In contrast, teams that embrace stewardship handle breaches differently. They establish norms together and create peer accountability. A toxic remark doesn’t just prompt a leader’s intervention; it elicits a peer saying, “That’s not how we do things here.” Culture becomes shared property, not delegated to authority.

The leader’s choice

The power lens challenges leaders to decide not just what to do with one person, but how power will be exercised in the team. There are several possible paths:

1. Centralise control. The leader takes full responsibility, monitoring and correcting the toxic employee. This creates short-term clarity but long-term dependency.

2. Diffuse responsibility through avoidance. The leader quietly hopes the problem will solve itself. This is also a choice,  but one that signals tolerance.

3. Distribute accountability. The leader explicitly invites the team into shared ownership: “It’s not just my job to create a respectful culture; it’s ours.” This requires courage,  peers must be willing to speak up, and the leader must tolerate discomfort.

4. Recontract authority. The leader makes explicit agreements about how power is exercised. This might mean shifting from “the manager enforces behaviour” to “we enforce norms together.” For example, rotating meeting facilitators can democratise responsibility.

The more profound truth is this: a leader’s response to toxicity is never neutral. By either monopolising control or inviting stewardship, they are shaping the team’s long-term relationship with power.

Leadership moves

• Name the dependency. Say explicitly: “I can’t be the only one protecting this culture. What do we want to hold each other accountable for?”

• Co-create norms. Run a session where the team defines 3–5 “non-negotiables” for respectful collaboration. Display them publicly and revisit them often.

• Model vulnerability. Show your own willingness to receive feedback. When leaders invite critique, it signals that accountability runs in every direction.

Reflective Question: Am I reinforcing dependency on my authority, or am I stewarding a culture where everyone shares responsibility for respect?

Lens 4: The possibility lens – beyond problem-solving

When a leader frames a talented but toxic team member as a “problem employee,” the field of action narrows. The standard menu appears: issue a warning, assign coaching, move them to another role, or start exit proceedings. These are legitimate tools,  but they keep the leader in a problem-solving mindset.

Problem-solving asks: What is broken and how do I fix it? Possibility asks: What future could we create out of this tension?

This lens does not romanticise toxicity. Harmful behaviour must be addressed. But it suggests that a crisis of culture can also be an invitation: to name unspoken truths, to renegotiate norms, to clarify values, and to strengthen resilience.

Organisations that only solve problems often repeat them. Organisations that ask possibility questions (“What kind of workplace do we want now?”) turn moments of tension into opportunities for transformation.

Workplace dynamics

When a toxic high performer dominates, the team’s dynamics often contain signals worth paying attention to:

• Unspoken frustrations. Toxic employees sometimes voice complaints others share but dare not express. Their delivery is damaging, but their content may hold kernels of truth ,  about workload imbalance, inconsistent leadership, or flawed systems. If leaders only punish tone, they miss the underlying signal.

• Culture in the shadows. Teams rarely talk openly about values until a breach occurs. Toxic behaviour, though harmful, forces the group to ask: What do we tolerate? What do we refuse? These conversations, though uncomfortable, are the raw material for stronger culture.

• Patterns of avoidance. When the team colludes in silence, it reveals more than fear of one person. It reveals a gap in collective courage. This is not just one person’s behaviour but the group’s readiness to face conflict.

In this sense, the toxic team member is not just a disruptor, they are also a mirror, reflecting back what the group has left unspoken.

The leader’s choice

Through the possibility lens, the leader faces a deeper set of choices than simply “retain or remove”:

1. Stay in repair mode. Keep cycling through fixes,  corrective plans, coaching interventions, disciplinary measures. This treats the symptoms but rarely shifts the system.

2. Ask possibility questions. Use the situation as a pivot point. Questions like: “What do we want to be true of how we treat each other when pressure is high?” or “What culture do we want to hand to new hires?” These conversations enlarge the field of vision beyond one person.

3. Turn breach into practice. Leaders can acknowledge openly: “This behaviour hurt our trust. How do we want to respond when this happens again,  from anyone?” This shifts the focus from policing one person to building group resilience.

4. Reframe success. Instead of defining success as “fixing this employee,” define success as “strengthening our culture so no one has permission to behave this way.” This reframes toxicity as a catalyst for learning.

The choice here is about whether the leader treats toxicity as a distraction to be minimised, or as an inflection point to be used.

Leadership moves

• Host a values conversation. Ask the team: “What behaviours strengthen us? What behaviours weaken us? What agreements do we want to make now?”

• Listen beneath the noise. Distil any valid insights hidden in the toxic employee’s complaints and bring them to the group for constructive dialogue.

• Create a cultural reset ritual. After a breach, lead a conversation not only about what went wrong but also about what kind of future the team chooses next.

Reflective Question: Am I focused on fixing a problem, or am I willing to use this challenge to create a stronger culture than before?

Lens 5: The collective lens – protecting the whole

It’s tempting to reduce the issue of a toxic high performer to an individual problem: If only they would change (or leave), everything would be fine. But toxicity never exists in isolation. It spreads through relationships, weakens culture, and reshapes what others believe is acceptable.

Research shows this contagion effect clearly. A study of misconduct in financial services found that toxic behaviour is 37% more likely to spread to peers who work closely with the offender (Gino et al., 2009). In other words, one person’s behaviour lowers the bar for everyone else. What begins as an isolated problem becomes an organisational pattern.

The collective lens shifts the question from “What do I do with this one person?” to “What do we, as a team, need to protect together?” It highlights that the real risk is not just one individual’s behaviour, but the erosion of shared standards.

Workplace dynamics

Toxicity radiates outward in visible and invisible ways:

• Fragmentation into camps. Teams split into defenders of the high performer (“We can’t afford to lose them”) and those harmed by their behaviour (“I can’t keep working like this”). These camps harden over time, creating tribalism inside the team.

• Normalisation of harm. When toxic behaviour is tolerated, others begin to copy it. New hires learn quickly: “This is just how things are done here.” Soon, sarcasm, avoidance, and disrespect become cultural norms.

• Loss of moral authority. Colleagues may stop believing in the leader’s stated values if they see behaviour tolerated that contradicts those values. The gap between words and reality breeds cynicism.

• Damage to organisational reputation. Word spreads beyond the team. Other departments, clients, and even prospective hires notice. Toxic culture is rarely contained; it leaks across boundaries.

The collective cost is not only lower performance but a weakened identity. The team becomes known more for what it tolerates than what it aspires to.

The leader’s choice

Through this lens, the leader faces a broader decision:

1. Treat it as an individual case. Focus narrowly on correcting or removing the toxic employee. This is necessary at times, but insufficient on its own. The team may still carry scars, and the conditions that allowed toxicity to flourish remain.

2. Name the collective impact. Bring the team into awareness: “Here’s how this behaviour affects all of us.” This reframes the issue as a shared problem, not just one person’s failing.

3. Establish collective norms. Use the crisis to build agreements that bind the group: “This is how we choose to work together, regardless of who is in the room.” This strengthens resilience for the future.

4. Protect the culture decisively. If an individual refuses to change, exiting them becomes an act of protection, not punishment. The message is: No one is bigger than the culture.

Ultimately, the leader must choose between protecting one individual’s contribution or protecting the whole team’s ability to thrive.

Leadership moves

• Hold a ripple conversation. Ask the team: “What happens to us,  as a group,  when toxic behaviour goes unchecked?” Let them map the ripple effects together.

• Make culture explicit. Translate values into specific behavioural standards and weave them into recruitment, onboarding, and evaluation.

• Frame exits as protection. If removal becomes necessary, communicate clearly: “This decision is about safeguarding the culture we all depend on.”

Reflective Question: Am I making decisions for one individual’s contribution, or am I protecting the long-term health of the whole?

Reflection questions

Across these five lenses, leaders are invited to pause and consider:

• The cost lens: What hidden costs have I normalised by tolerating this person’s behaviour? If I calculated the true price in turnover, disengagement, and leadership distraction, what would I see differently?

• The relationship lens: What is happening to trust in my team? Where do people feel most able to contribute, and when do they feel most unsafe?

• The power lens: Am I reinforcing dependency on my authority, or am I distributing accountability so that all own culture?

• The possibility lens: Am I only trying to fix a problem, or am I using this moment as an invitation to create a stronger culture than before?

• The collective lens: Whose future am I protecting, one individual’s short-term contribution or the long-term health of the whole?

Beyond the individual lenses, leaders might also ask:

• What story will this decision tell about what matters most in this workplace?

• Where am I tempted to value immediate results over long-term health, and what might that reveal about my own pressures?

• How can I involve the broader team in shaping the culture, rather than assuming I must solve this alone?

• What future do I want new team members to inherit from us, and how will today’s choices shape that?

• If this toxic high performer left tomorrow, what relief, risks, or opportunities would the team experience?

A practical way to bring these reflections together is to imagine it is 12 months from now, and the team is thriving. Ask yourself: What decisions did I make about this situation that created the conditions for that flourishing? What did I choose to protect, and what did I decide to let go of? This exercise helps leaders see beyond immediate tension and focus on the culture they want to create for the long run.

Conclusion

When all the numbers are tallied and the team’s whispers have been heard, the real test comes down to a single conversation. Leadership in this moment is not first about policies or dashboards. It begins with sitting across from the one person whose talent and behaviour sit in tension and choosing how to speak.

The one-to-one encounter is where integrity becomes visible. It is where we decide whether to collude in silence or speak the truth with respect. This is not about offering feedback as a transaction. It is about naming the impact their behaviour has on the community, inviting them into accountability, and listening for whether they are willing to join in protecting what the team holds most valuable.

If they are willing, the future is shared. If they are not, then the leader’s role is to set a boundary with clarity and care. This is not punishment. It is an act of service to the whole. Exit, if it must come, should be done with gratitude for what was given and with a clear message: talent is welcome here, harm is not.

At its heart, this is a question of belonging. Do we use our authority to control outcomes, or do we call someone into community? Every leader has the chance to make this choice, one room at a time, one conversation at a time. The conversation itself becomes stewardship,  a moment where we protect dignity, preserve trust, and declare the kind of culture we are committed to creating.

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