I’ve lost patience with a quiet leadership habit that destroys culture: tolerating one person’s toxic behavior because they “deliver.” Allowing is rewarding. And when I reward, I incentivize. I don’t just greenlight that person’s behavior; I broadcast to everyone that if they want to advance, that’s how they should act. That becomes the culture, and it becomes that fast.
When I sit with CEOs, I ask one question that cuts through excuses: imagine everyone in the company behaved exactly like the senior executive you’re currently excusing. What would happen? The answer is always panic. “I’d never allow that.” Then why do I allow it for one person? If I wouldn’t accept it at scale, I can’t accept it at all.
The hard part isn’t judgment; it’s courage. Most leaders don’t want to make the tough call or have the hard conversation. They tell themselves stories: she’s a rainmaker, he gets things done, we just hired them, replacing them would be a distraction. I get it. Results are visible and rewarded. But principle-first leadership means I take the conversation myself. I don’t send HR to do my job. I sit down, I name the behavior, I tie it to consequences, and I reset the standard. No euphemisms, no delays to “see if it improves.” When I delegate the tough talk, I delegate my authority, and I teach avoidance to every manager watching.
Boards: Stop Pretending Culture Is HR’s Job
I’ve sat in boardrooms where culture and behavior never make the agenda. Not once. Only the numbers. Only the numbers. Occasionally, someone raises a concern, but it dies in the middle because there’s no mechanism to elevate it, no metric to anchor it, and no accountability tied to it. Meanwhile, bullying reports stall at HR and never reach the board, while polished diversity and inclusion summaries do. I like the inclusion dashboards. I also want to see the behavioral reality that determines whether people feel they belong and can grow.
Here’s what I ask for now:
Change what top executives are measured and rewarded on. Include behavioral and culture metrics, not just financial KPIs.
Bring identity and norms into the board conversation. What behaviors are we seeing, tolerating, and promoting?
Ensure that serious culture risk, bullying, attrition spikes, and early exits reach the board with concrete actions and timelines.
This isn’t soft. It’s predictive. Research from places like MIT Sloan and HBR has shown that culture strength and toxicity predict attrition far better than pay. When I treat culture as a governance priority, I protect performance.
The Long Game: Grow People, Not Just Numbers
If I want ten years of prosperity, I can plant trees. If I want a hundred, I grow people. That isn’t poetry; it’s operating discipline. Companies that cut learning, development, and well-being first in a downturn pay in lost momentum and compounding attrition. Every time I see HR and development budgets cut, I start the clock. It takes two to three years to recover. Always.
One-off keynotes don’t build capability. Sustained programs: manager training, feedback skills, coaching, psychological safety, and real stress management. Stress isn’t the enemy; our relationship to it is. I remind my daughter of that when exams and overload hit. It’s worse for the new generation: unlike my childhood bullying that stopped at the door, their stress follows them home, 24/7, on every screen. If I expect people to perform, I have to equip them to manage pressure, attention, and anxiety in a world that never switches off.
Protect the people line items. They are infrastructure, not perks. When I pull those dollars, early warning signs show up fast: new hires quit in two months; engagement tanks; managers default to pressure and shortcuts; teams spend energy recovering from avoidable harm. Then, leaders blame “Gen Z fragility.” No. They simply won’t tolerate what older cohorts were forced to endure. Remove purpose and dignity, and they walk.
The Harsh Truth About Attrition: They’re Not Leaving the Company
People don’t leave companies. People leave managers. I’ve heard every exit-story myth. “She found a better opportunity.” “They got an offer they couldn’t refuse.” Here’s my test: if someone truly loves their work and feels respected, they tell me about the outside offer and ask how we can make it work. If they resign without a serious prior conversation, they’re leaving me. That’s a mirror, not a market failure.
I’ve said it out loud in rooms that prefer spin: if I come home and find my partner packed, the problem didn’t start that day. Signals were there. I missed them or ignored them. Attrition is the same. It’s personal, manager by manager. Gallup has shown that managers drive most variance in engagement. I either build manager capability and hold the line on behavior, or I accept predictable churn.
What I’m Doing Differently, and What I Challenge You to Do
Audit my allowances. Who am I excusing because they deliver? If I didn’t scale their behavior company-wide, I would address it now.
Own the hard conversations. No outsourcing to HR. I set the standard, name the gap, define consequences, and follow through.
Put culture on the board agenda with metrics. Include behavioral indicators, early-exit data, bullying escalations, and manager capability measures.
Ringfence people investment. Replace one-off inspiration with sustained programs that build skills, resilience, and belonging.
Train managers like my business depends on it, because it does.
If I measure and reward what I truly value, culture follows. If I tolerate what I know is wrong, culture follows faster. Allowing is rewarding. And when I reward, I incentivize. The question I ask myself every quarter is simple: if everyone copied my worst allowance, would I still be proud of this company? If the answer is no, I don’t wait. I act.
