Transcript
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Welcome to the no Bullshit Leadership Podcast. In a world where knowledge has become a commodity, this podcast is designed to give you something more access to the experience of a successful CEO who has already walked the path. So join your host, Martin Moore, who will unlock and bring to life your own leadership experiences and accelerate your journey to leadership excellence.
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Welcome to Moments with Marty, your short, sharp shot of leadership insight to help you to stay on track between our weekly episodes of the no Bullshit Leadership Podcast. One of the questions I field regularly from leaders at all levels is this. Marty I have a staff member who's a high performer. But. Now what follows? The but varies. A few of the most common buts are but no one likes working with them, but they refuse to do the required admin work. But they're really arrogant. But they treat their people really poorly, but I have to constantly pull them up for their bad attitude. All these buts are just variations on a theme, and they amount to the same thing. The person is a dickhead. That's a technical term. So before I answer these questions, I generally find myself challenging the fundamental premise that the person is a high performer. Are they really a high performer? Sure, they might be a gun salesperson, they might be a brilliant analyst. They might be a crack lawyer. But in my world, you're not a high performer if you can't play happily in the sandpit with others. So probably a more accurate question to ask me would Marty, I have an employee who's really good at their job, but they're a dickhead. What should I do? Well, chances are you have a talented jerk in your midst. Talented jerks seem to think that their superior performance gives them the license to behave in whatever manner they see fit. They don't observe the usual social protocols that are essential in maintaining a stable team. If I was to describe the taxonomy of talented jerks, they come in five main flavours. Some use arrogance as a mask. They aren't really that good at their jobs in objective terms, but they use arrogance to project an air of confidence, superiority, or above average performance. Then there's the rainmaker. When someone's making a major impact on the top line and propping up your sales numbers, it's really easy to overlook even their most blatant flaws. Then you have your technical guru. Now, this type of jerk doesn't necessarily rely on performance. They rely more on what they know than what they produce. Knowledge is power for them, and they're likely to hoard that knowledge. Some jerks are what I like to call often wrong, never in doubt they can't seem to countenance the possibility that their views might not be right. Their overconfidence borders on hubris, which makes them really obstinate and they create silos between their team and everyone else. And finally, there are the conscious culture killers. These jerks are actually malicious and they work to bring down other people, usually to protect the status quo. They like the world just the way it is and they want to protect their power base. Now these jerks are also known as root guards or sqds. Status quo defenders. Working out how to handle each type of talented jerk can be a little tricky because you need to find a balance between harnessing their talent and making sure they're not out of step with the cultural and behavioural standards you're trying to set. It may not surprise you to know that I typically erred on the side of the of intolerance, particularly if the talented jerk was in a leadership role. I didn't want that attitude to be replicated in their teams. So I had a number of one on one conversations over the course of my executive career that I would describe as relatively straightforward. The script was always pretty much the same. Your performance is fine, but I want to talk about your behaviour and attitude. I don't care how many sales you rack up, you need to make different choices about how you conduct yourself. To be clear, I'm not prepared to entertain poor behavior going forward. Now feel free to come back to me and let me know if there's any reason you can think of why I should make an exception to the standard for you. Otherwise, I'm going to be looking for an immediate improvement in the way you do things. When it comes to dealing with your leader's behavioural choices, you have to be quite unforgiving. If you're not, it's going to spread through the team like a cancer. For more depth on this insight, have a listen to episode 240 of the no Bullshit Leadership podcast, the Talented Jerk. We'll leave a link in the show notes. I really hope you enjoyed this moment and that it gives you that extra little spark to be a no Bullshit leader.