A 'Problem Employee' Might Be Your Best Employee

When a high-performing employee joins a struggling or dysfunctional team, the reaction is often surprising: instead of being celebrated, they are sometimes seen as a problem. But in reality, they're not creating problems. They're revealing them.

Whether you're managing a medical practice where one nurse consistently follows protocols while others take shortcuts, running a professional services firm where a new hire questions why deadlines are routinely missed, or operating any business where standards vary by person, the same dynamic emerges: exceptional employees make existing dysfunction visible.

What Exceptional Employees Do Differently

Exceptional employees tend to demonstrate three consistent behaviors that set them apart from the rest of the team.

They read and follow expectations completely. They understand their role and aim to deliver on it fully, whether that means following patient safety protocols precisely, meeting project deadlines consistently, or maintaining quality standards without exception.

They aren't swayed by workplace politics or personality-driven decision making. They don't cave to the colleagues who impose their will on coworkers just to get their way, and they focus on doing what's right rather than what's comfortable for certain individuals.

They strive for the highest standard in everything they do. Their focus is on serving the team, the customer, or the patient rather than on maintaining the comfort of the status quo that allows mediocrity to flourish.

When such employees show up and consistently demonstrate these behaviors, the lack of accountability within the team suddenly becomes visible to everyone. And that visibility creates discomfort throughout the organization.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Excellence

This situation creates what I call the "fairness gap" that I've written about extensively in the Team Building Blueprint: "If I have to follow the rules and maintain high standards, why doesn't everyone else?" This question reflects a fundamental breakdown in organizational accountability that affects morale, performance, and retention.

The exceptional employee isn't trying to make waves or create problems. They're simply operating at the level they believe everyone should maintain. But their presence highlights the gap between stated expectations and actual performance that has been tolerated for too long.

Here's how it often plays out in practice: the employees who have been operating under relaxed standards don't just feel uncomfortable with the new expectations - they actively resist them. They may start showing up late more frequently, conveniently miss important communications, form cliques that exclude the high performer, or engage in gossip designed to undermine their credibility. These behaviors are attempts to pressure the exceptional employee back into the comfort zone of lowered standards.

While leadership and customers often recognize and appreciate the high performer's contributions, peer-level colleagues can view them as a threat to the informal system they've created. Rather than rising to meet the higher standard, some team members choose to make the exceptional employee's work life difficult, hoping to either drive them away or force them to lower their performance to match the group norm.

This dynamic creates a toxic environment where excellence is punished by peers even when it's valued by leadership, putting exceptional employees in an impossible position that often leads to their departure.

Why Accountability Breaks Down

There are many reasons organizations struggle with accountability, but two of the most common stem from leadership challenges rather than employee deficiencies.

Managers become overburdened with operational tasks and lose focus on their primary responsibility: leading people. They get stretched thin, covered in paperwork and meetings, with little time to actually monitor performance or enforce standards. Their leadership role gets buried under operational noise, creating accountability gaps throughout the organization.

Some managers resist delegation because maintaining control makes them feel secure and important. But holding onto every decision or detail prevents the team from growing and leaves accountability vacuums everywhere else. This creates an environment where standards become suggestions rather than requirements.

Both of these issues are counterproductive in the long run.

When leaders don't set clear expectations or fail to enforce them consistently, dysfunction grows unchecked until an exceptional employee walks in and exposes the problems that have been festering beneath the surface.

A Leadership Reality Check

Before you label a strong employee as difficult or problematic, ask yourself these critical questions: Are they really creating problems, or are they showing me the problems I've been ignoring? Are they being unreasonable, or are they simply operating at the standard I claim to want from everyone?

Great leaders know the difference between problem employees and employees who reveal problems. As former GE CEO Jack Welch observed, "Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion." Driving accountability is part of that relentless work.

According to Gallup research, only 30% of employees strongly agree their manager holds them accountable for their performance, leaving massive gaps for dysfunction to spread throughout organizations. This isn't a problem of poor employees but a leadership issue that requires systematic attention and consistent follow-through.

The Choice Every Leader Faces

When a new high performer arrives and dysfunction becomes visible because they aren't willing to play along with lowered standards, leaders face a critical choice. They can either address the systemic issues that the exceptional employee has revealed, or they can try to suppress the symptoms by pressuring the high performer to lower their standards.

The first choice leads to organizational improvement and higher performance across the team. The second choice leads to losing your best people while reinforcing a culture of mediocrity.

Exceptional employees who reveal dysfunction aren't a threat to team harmony. They're a gift that shows you exactly where your leadership attention is needed most. They provide a clear picture of what your organization could become if standards were consistently maintained and accountability was fairly applied.

Building Systems That Support Excellence

The solution isn't to suppress exceptional performance or ask your best people to lower their standards. The solution is to build systems that support and expect excellence from everyone while providing the clarity and accountability that makes high performance possible.

This requires documenting clear expectations so everyone understands what good performance looks like, creating consistent accountability processes that apply to all team members equally, and providing the training and support people need to meet higher standards rather than just hoping they figure it out on their own.

When you do this work systematically, exceptional employees become catalysts for organizational improvement rather than sources of friction. Their high standards become the model that others aspire to reach rather than the benchmark that makes others feel inadequate.

Your Next Steps

If you have an exceptional employee who seems to be "causing problems," take time to examine what they're actually revealing about your systems and standards. Use their performance as a mirror that shows you where your organization needs attention.

The Team Building Blueprint provides detailed frameworks for building the accountability systems that allow exceptional employees to thrive while raising the performance of everyone around them.

Don't lose your best people because they showed you problems you didn't want to see. Use their excellence as the foundation for building the high-performing culture you've been trying to create.

Talk soon,

Jim