The Long Odds of Reforming an Employee Who Is a ‘Destructive Hero’
The results are always blindingly good. That is why so many business owners are slow to recognize the dangers posed by employees sometimes known as destructive heroes.
.. he does not claim to have coined the term, but he said it occurred to him when envisioning a comic book superhero who vanquishes an archvillain, and leaves a city in ruins in the process.
.. Also known as brilliant jerks, destructive heroes are egotists, prima donnas, anything but team players. The drain on company morale can be stark. Why isn’t the boss dealing with such an obvious bad apple? people wonder. And because destructive heroes typically fashion their fiefs and achieve their results by intimidating co-workers, the abused colleagues may run for the exits.
.. And continued to behave badly. “She was a faster puller — the best person on customer service — and that was part of the problem,” said the founder. “When a new employee wasn’t as good as her, she’d get mad. If we hired someone she perceived as a threat, maybe someone smarter, maybe more attractive, friendlier, she was not nice to them and she’d complain about them to me.”
.. Eventually, she said, she took “the chicken’s way out.” She moved her problem employee into an administrative position with less responsibility and increased the routine tasks until she quit.
.. Eventually, however, he began to question whether the employee’s vaunted sales covered all of his hidden costs. “We got a team of people together and looked at how much time we were spending on this individual,” Mr. McGohan said.
.. Mr. McGohan said. “The other sad part is, about 15 years ago, I was the same guy.”