Leaders Have to STOP Avoiding the ‘Good Guy’ Killing Your Culture

Let me ask you, do you have someone on your team? Smart, experienced, maybe even a long-timer. People will describe them as a good guy, but there's a problem. They cut people off in meetings, dismiss new ideas, or create tension behind the scenes. You know it, your team knows it, but you hesitate to act. Here's the gotcha. Having a good guy, but mentality undermines accountability, erodes trust, and ultimately sabotages the team and your own credibility as a leader. We're going to talk about it, all of it—the mentality, the impact to your team, and the cost to the business—along with a process you can use with actions you need to take to make both your mindset and your next steps work for everyone.

Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. With more than 25 years in corporate trenches, Bernadette's own journey from being dismissed as a tyrant boss to becoming a sought-after leadership coach and speaker illustrates the very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies, and stories. So if you're ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome, and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.

Let's paint the picture. Let's say you're the leader and you have someone on your team that you have worked with for years. They work really hard, not necessarily smart, but hard. They show up every day. They get the job done and even exceed the productivity of work and tasks. They're funny, energetic, and they care about the well-being of you and the team members. But they gossip. They disparage team members one-on-one or in groups. They start an argument or push back on everything. It doesn't matter what it is. They are completely unaware of their behaviors and actions. And they're always touting how great they are, how needed they are, how irreplaceable they are. And you hear regularly from team members across the company how the individual is negatively hurting them the team, the culture, and the business. So what do you do? I was fortunate that I learned this lesson of the good guy, but very early in my career, I was in my mid-20s working in retail as a buyer, and a team member didn't work directly for me, but a team member was my closest friend. And yet her behavior was very frustrating. She really couldn't get into work on time, or even at the time that her boss or senior boss wanted her to be in. So it interrupted our team meetings, it interrupted just everybody getting into the flow of the day. And I would often share with her how frustrating and how disrespectful and irresponsible it was that she was always showing up late. And yet her boss really wasn't doing anything about it. Now, she was a really good performer. You could always rely on her to get the job done. Yet these simple but yet impactful behaviors and actions were very disruptive to the team. And I even pulled her aside at one point and mentioned to her that I was going to be talking to her boss. About whether or not she should still be on the team. And it was serious enough to where I even shared with her that if she had worked— if she had worked for me, I would have been letting her go a long time ago. And fortunately, that hit. Fortunately, that really provided kind of a wake-up call for her, and she made and changed her ways. So it's really critical for any of us to certainly have relationships in the workplace, but we have to recognize that it is a business and we have to ensure that we're doing what's right and what's best for the business, but also for the team. One player can't disrupt all the players of a team. Or you're going to see the team break down. But why do leaders fall into the trap of accepting poor behavior, even toxic behavior in some instances? Well, one is they have their own fear, insecurity of the confrontation or being seen as mean. They don't wanna be the bad guy. You know, especially if they do have a social relationship of any degree Again, we should have those type of relationships, but there's many that when they do, they then find themselves having a very difficult time correcting them or disciplining them, or even just simply holding them accountable, which we'll talk about in a minute. There's, you know, if there's a loyalty to that individual, because they've been around for a long time, or you know, their contributions in the past have just been significant and really even got them where they want to go. Then it makes it even more challenging layering on that with the personal, emotional attachment that they have with an individual to where then they definitely find it easy to avoid or ignore it and accept the behavior without considering what it's doing to the to the rest of the team and even to their own leadership and their own credibility. Then there's always what's called the halo effect. The likability of that individual, the fact that they're fun and social and engaging and they bring a lot of, you know, energy and joy to the, to the team, really allows people to overlook the negative, and they tend to ignore it and overlook it because they enjoy the company of that individual. The next one is they really try to rationalize or defend someone's behavior or performance. They're going through something. They don't mean to do it. It's just who they are. You know, their, their natural personality is just assertive or even abrasive or aggressive. It's, you know, it's their culture, it's their upbringing, it's where they're from, and they just find ways to rationalize one's behavior. And then ultimately there is this kind of hidden self-interest that they avoid it because they want to avoid the discomfort of having to address it. And the discomfort at the expense of even the team's health and happiness is really discounted because of the fact that they don't want to get uncomfortable. But lastly, one of the major reasons why many leaders fall into the trap of accepting a good guy but, and that is an individual is a massive contributor. A massive revenue generator. And therefore, to look at, you know, the, the productivity they produce versus the chaos they're creating, they tend to overlook the chaos because they're a major contributor, a revenue generator, a massive producer. You need to be careful. You want to be careful. And very thoughtful that if you have a situation where you would ever share with someone, well, he's a good guy or girl, but— and that but far outweighs the good guy or girl, far outweighs it. And I hear it far too often. And if you want a high-functioning, high-performing team, you need to ensure that that thinking, that mentality is not within your team or within the business because the cost is too high. So let's look at the cost in multiple ways. Let's look at the team, the overall performance of team members and yourself, the culture, and even you as a leader. Let's look at the team and put yourself in a team member's shoes as, as a leader, but, and then look at it from a team member's perspective. If there is a team member who might be reliable, dependable, shows up, does his job, his or her job, yet creates chaos, gossips, sabotages individuals, creating a lot of stress and frustration and dissatisfaction with even showing up at work for all the other team members. Consider what that's going to do to your team. It's going to cause them to gain resentment, not only toward that person, but toward anyone who's not doing anything about it, including you. It's going to cause them to stop engaging, especially with that individual, but even that individual within the collective team. Say you're in a meeting and that individual is there along with others, and P— and someone just doesn't want to get into it. Someone doesn't want that person to get triggered in any way, shape, or form. So they choose to disengage and not, and not include themselves in the discussion. And what will that do to your overall team performance? At the same time, one's behavior is being viewed and experienced by others. And this is one thing that's not talked about a lot. And the next thing you know, they see that that person's behavior, they're able to get away with it. They're able to gossip, disparage, disrespect, just overall have some, you know, toxic behavior. And they see that they get away with it. And then in some cases, they even see that that individual gets promoted or advanced. Into other projects under other initiatives. And therefore, that— those other team members start taking on or modeling that same behavior. So not only is one person eroding the trust, eroding the collaboration, eroding the engagement of the team, but now they're deciding that, hey, if you can't beat them, you might as well join them. And the next thing you know, it festers into and throughout your team. So you really need to think about what is the behavior you want all team members, especially yourself, but all team members to be modeling for each other. And then of course, all of this is gonna ultimately lead to some of your top performers leaving, whether it's leaving your team or leaving the company as a whole. But people can only take so much. Now, when it comes to overall performance of individuals, of the team, even yourself, the next thing you know, when all this resentment's building up, this disengagement's building up, this lack of collaboration's building up, this, you know, people taking on that bad behavior, that's just going to create a lot more conflict than you even have at the moment with one individual. And so you need to, you know, kind of keep an eye and, and take a pulse of the temperature of your team members. If even one of them is not, you know, contributing and behaving and performing in a respectful teaming collaborative way, because you won't have collaboration from a performance perspective. You're going to have statements being made at each other as opposed to a conversation. And then, of course, if the collaboration disappears, if the conflicts arise, if people are walking around with a chip on their shoulder, well, then the next thing you know, you will take an immediate or longer-term hit to the results and to the achievements that you and the team are able to accomplish. We're going up, right? We're looking at the team. We're looking at overall performance. Now, looking at your culture, just consider, play it, play it in your head of what is it going to do to the culture? Well, it's definitely going to establish itself as a conflict avoidance accountability ignorance, a toxic-generating culture. That's what it's going to all of a sudden brand your team as if you allow it to continue. And if others are observing this type of environment amongst team members, again, The hit to the team, the hit to the overall performance, the hit to the culture. And then, of course, all of that's going to roll downhill to you. And it's going to take— you're going to take a hit to your credibility. You're going to take a hit to your leadership capability. You're going to take a hit to overall lack of leadership if you're not capable or willing to address the situation with this individual, especially before it becomes more of a collective team type of issue versus just an individual issue. So if you ever have a situation where you have a team member who is a good guy, but look at that but and address it. Do not avoid it. Do not ignore it because it will come back and bite you in the butt. So let's look at what can you be doing to really think differently about individuals on your team who you do have some connection to, who you do have some loyalty to, who you do have some relationship with, and what could you be doing differently to ensure that everyone is getting the support that they need in order to be the best contributors and the best performers for, for a company and for a team. The first thing I would suggest is redefine what nice really means. What does that good guy or gal, what does that really mean? Because nice gets you in trouble. Good guy, good gal gets you in trouble. It causes you to avoid addressing any issues. It causes you to get very uncomfortable. It causes you to ignore and accept and lower your standards. So redefine nice and look at it as— instead of nice, look at it as respectful. And then think about how would you respond to someone? How would you treat someone who is disrespectful? Disrespectful in their words, disrespectful in their behavior, disrespectful in their actions, disrespectful in pure lack of. How would you then handle that? And I think if you looked at it as respectful versus nice, you'll, you'll have an easier time walking into the discomfort of addressing someone who's disrespectful. And ultimately, that's going to come to accountability, holding that person accountable. But I like people to think about accountability as simply reminding them of the expectations and, and goals and objectives that you've set for them. You might have set expectations for how one behaves, how one shows up, how one acts, how someone communicates, engages, collaborates with others on the team or beyond. And therefore, accountability is simply saying, all right, Joe or Joanne, I've observed this behavior from you, and I find it to be disrespectful. I find it to be— to go against the expectations that we all agree to. For each other and for the team. And I— we need to talk about it. You need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. As a leader, you're expected to deal with difficult situations. You're, you're expected to deal with tension. You're expected to deal with high emotions and low emotions. And therefore, you need to find the practices and the work that you can do on yourself to gain that confidence, to gain that clarity, to gain that focus on how to walk into an uncomfortable situation calmly, thoughtfully, intentionally, so you can address it before it becomes even a bigger problem. And to kind of touch on that, or to create like a thread of those first two, is really detach behavior from the person. Detach behavior from the identity of that person. And so you don't want to be excusing poor performance. Would you do that to anyone else on your team? You want to make sure that one's behavior is what you want to address, not their identity, not their— the person themselves. And so if you address specific behaviors, you're not addressing the character of the person. It might look like, Joe, when you interrupt someone, people stop engaging. They stop contributing because they find that you're constantly interrupting them and not allowing them to have a voice or to share their idea, and therefore they don't engage at all. You, you know, that is a much better way of addressing someone and dealing with conflict or tension because you're not attacking the person, you're not attacking their character, you're addressing the behavior that's not appropriate. So you're not saying, hey, you're being disrespectful. And how many of us would go about it that way. You're being disrespectful and it has to stop is often what I will hear from my own clients. But then we work on shifting that and reframing that to being, don't address the person, you wanna address the behavior. Another thing you can do and help you with the discomfort of uncomfortable situations is you can look at the fact that this individual is negatively impacting the whole team. So you have 3 people, 5 people, 12 people on your team, and one person is creating a lot of the turmoil or tension for your team. You can go about approaching that individual By even having them consider, you might say to them, am I being fair to the whole team by letting your behavior slide? You're getting them to think about the fact that they're impacting a, you know, a group of people, that their behavior is having a negative impact on many, not just one. And you might also even approach them in sharing the experience that their behavior is creating for the people that they're interacting with. Are you aware of how it feels for someone when you're cutting them off when they're bringing up an idea or have a solution to the problem and they're attempting to raise it up, but you keep interrupting them? Are you aware that the experience that they're having is that they're— they don't feel valued? They don't feel as if they can contribute. They don't feel as if they're a team member. And you're creating that experience for them. So you want to ensure that, one, you're not excusing one's bad behavior, while at the same time making them think about and really consider the impact and the experience that behavior is having on those around them. What you're doing is you're transferring any of the accountability onto them. And therefore you really shouldn't be uncomfortable in addressing that. And therefore you're making sure that they're considering the impact that they're having to those around them. Another reason I find individuals have a difficult time with accountability because they really have no well-defined boundaries or expectations of what they want from their people, what they expect from their people. And therefore, if they don't have them and they haven't been communicated to their people, there's really nothing to measure or to assess one's behavior against it. Now, this isn't to say that if someone's disparaging or gossiping, you know, that's a natural, unprofessional behavior. However, it's really critical that any leader of one person or 100 people really clearly define what those performance and behavioral standards are for their team and/or for the company as a whole, and then communicate those as expectations to your team members. Because then there is this framework that says, all right, if you know, if you're behaving a certain way, maybe you fit into that framework. But if you're behaving in another way that goes against that framework, then it's something that needs to be addressed. And so it allows and provides clarity and understanding for everyone as far as what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. One thing you can certainly do to get more comfortable being uncomfortable is to seek feedback on your blind spots. Ask team members, your direct reports, peers, managers. Do your own 360 assessment, so to speak. Around what are your blind spots when it comes to holding your team accountable, identifying poor behavior or bad behavior, addressing conflict. Get some feedback. You may feel you're strong in certain areas when others really— the experience that you're creating for them doesn't align. And so get that feedback and then you can come up with a plan to address it and develop it. And move on from it and grow from it. So there's a lot that you could be doing in regards to really reframing or looking at things differently when it comes to having to deal with a good guy, but we have to address that but. So redefine what nice means to you. Make sure you're getting comfortable being uncomfortable as you're also detaching the behavior from the person or the identity, separating the two, because it'll make it easier for you to address anything that goes against the expectations and the standards you defined. And then, of course, we want to be sure that we're, you know, protecting many of our team members, not just one because you like them, while really strengthening your accountability muscle. Really working on the language, the approach, the style to use when it comes to reminding— because that's what accountability is— reminding someone of the expectations that they agreed with. And then, of course, you want to really understand your role and responsibility and understand the blind spots that you might have. Here are 6 tips you can use to really ensure that you're not allowing one person to pull down the overall performance and contribution and value of your entire team. So that would be spotted early. Keep an eye out for behaviors and actions that aren't aligned to the standards and the values and the expectations that you have set that are hurting other team members. And then when you do identify anything, or maybe someone comes to you, don't dismiss it, don't avoid it, don't ignore it. Reframe how you need to go about addressing it and learning more about it so you understand it, so then you can provide the appropriate coaching and correction that would be needed so there is a change. So spot it early and address it very quickly. And then be sure you are documenting anything and everything that is needed in order to follow through on the accountability, the observations, and the feedback that you're providing to this individual. So they are very clear and can be very focused on what needs to change, what needs to be different. And then be sure to set those expectations. Establish boundaries for your team as far as what's acceptable and what's not acceptable behavior. How you expect the team to be collaborating, engaging, supporting, teaching, coaching, developing each other. Define them for yourself and be sure that you're communicating that with your team and not only communicating it, but you're gaining acceptance from your team members as far as what those boundaries are, what those expectations, those goals, those objectives are. Now, I said acceptance because you may not gain 100% agreement to them. Someone might disagree with you as far as what you've defined for the team. And yet you're not looking for consensus. You're not looking for everyone to agree with you. It's how you want your team to be behaving and performing. And showing up each and every day. And therefore you just need them to accept that. And then that's how you measure, assess, and provide feedback or even discuss consequences with team members. So you want to spot it early, address it quickly, document and measure it, and then set those expectations or those boundaries and communicate them so that everyone has a very clear idea. From that, if you have a persistent issue, you need to make sure you are escalating it quickly or escalating it as needed. You want to involve the necessary people. You want to ensure that whatever training, resources, support, coaching is needed is given to an individual to ensure the change and the reset that you're looking for. From there, what you could do is ensure that you use these situations, these challenges, as learning opportunities for your team members collectively without disclosing anything confidential or anything disparaging or what might be perceived as gossiping. You could— can remind your team members of the expectations, the standards that you have for everyone on the team and how you're gonna go about holding anyone accountable should they not show up and not perform in the way that was established. Ensure that you just don't move on from this situation. Use it as a great learning opportunity for your team. And I'll give you a bonus tip. When it comes to really looking at good guy butt, you know, that nice guy, the likable guy, the person you've known for a really long time, just simply ask yourself, If another team member performed in the way that this individual performed or behaved, would you tolerate it? So ask yourself, if another team member behaved in the way that this team member behaved, would I tolerate it? And you might just find yourself saying, "Yeah, no." And if that's the case, then you know what you have to do. As uncomfortable as it might be, you know what you have to do. As we wrap up, I want to give you a challenge. I really want you to think about and identify who your good guy butt is. Is there someone on your team where you have let them slide, let them get away with behavior that— it doesn't have to be all in the extreme of toxic, but behavior that isn't in the best interest of the health of your team, the success of your team? And if so, then write down and really think through what is the impact, what is the cost this individual is having to my team? And if you don't know, then ask, ask your team members to give you feedback in regards to it. They know you want to help them. You want to care for them. So ask them if you can't answer those questions for yourself. And then take one step this week to really confront it, to address it, to ensure that you're looking out for the many, not just for the one. Because leaders who protect one person's comfort at the cost of the whole team, they aren't leading, they're avoiding. Accountability is not cruelty, it's courage. And if you are here, You are a powerhouse leader or working your way to be. And one way you can do that is ensure that the good guy butt goes away and becomes a respectful member of your team. You deserve it. Your team deserves it, and the business deserves it. Now, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your colleagues and team members, as well as subscribe to Shedding the Corporate Bitch. You can go to balloffirecoaching.com/podcast and follow us on any one of your podcast streaming services or even Shedding the Corporate Bitch YouTube channel. I look forward to having you back here for another episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch.

Bye. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Every journey taken together is another step towards unleashing the powerhouse leader within you. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Want to dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoaching.com to learn more about how she helps professionals, HR executives, and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and