Coaching the High Performer Who Undermines Teamwork
A high-performing employee can deliver exceptional results while quietly weakening collaboration. They may exceed targets, solve difficult problems, and become indispensable to clients, yet interrupt colleagues, withhold information, dismiss feedback, or turn shared work into a personal competition. Their individual contribution can conceal the cost imposed on the wider team.
This pattern creates a difficult coaching assignment. The person may have a strong reputation, loyal sponsors, and evidence that their methods produce results. A manager who approaches the issue as a character flaw is likely to meet defensiveness. Effective coaching connects behavior to business impact, preserves the person’s strengths, and makes collaborative conduct part of performance.
The goal is not to reduce ambition or lower standards. It is to help a talented professional expand their definition of success from “I delivered” to “we delivered sustainably, with trust, clarity, and shared ownership.”
Recognize The Performance Paradox
The first step is to separate achievement from contribution. A high performer may hit revenue goals while creating rework, frustrating peers, escalating conflict, or causing less experienced colleagues to stop speaking up. These effects are easy to overlook when formal metrics focus mostly on individual output.
Look for repeated signals rather than isolated incidents. Colleagues may avoid partnering with the person, decisions may bottleneck around them, or team members may wait for their approval before taking initiative. The employee might frequently rescue projects at the last minute, then use those rescues as evidence that others are unreliable. This can create a self-reinforcing cycle in which their controlling behavior produces the dependence they criticize.
A useful coaching conversation names both sides of the pattern: “Your expertise and urgency help us meet demanding goals. The way those strengths are being expressed is making collaboration harder and limiting the team’s capacity.” This balanced framing is direct without being punitive.
Diagnose The Behavior And Its Cost
Before setting a development goal, gather specific observations. Replace labels such as “difficult,” “arrogant,” or “not a team player” with visible behavior: interrupting during project reviews, changing another person’s work without discussion, failing to share client context, or taking credit for collective outcomes.
Then identify the impact at several levels. What happens to delivery quality, psychological safety, customer experience, retention, and leadership capacity? A behavior that seems efficient in the moment may create hidden costs later. For example, taking over a presentation can save ten minutes today but prevent a colleague from developing the confidence required for future client work.
Invite the employee to examine the gap between intention and effect. They may believe that fast decisions demonstrate commitment, while others experience those decisions as dismissive. They may think they are protecting standards, while peers experience constant correction as a lack of trust. Behavioral coaching works when the person can see the consequence without feeling personally condemned.
Set A Broader Definition Of Success
Performance expectations should include collaboration as a measurable leadership behavior. A high performer should understand that results, relationships, and repeatable team capability are connected. If a person achieves a target by exhausting colleagues or creating operational risk, the outcome is incomplete.
Agree on two or three observable commitments. These might include inviting dissent before final decisions, assigning visible ownership to others, sharing information within a defined timeframe, or giving credit accurately in senior meetings. Avoid vague goals such as “be more supportive.” Clear behaviors create something the employee can practice and review.
The manager also needs to reinforce the standard consistently. Praising heroic individual effort while criticizing poor teamwork sends a contradictory message. Recognition should highlight behaviors such as developing others, improving cross-functional trust, and making high-quality work easier for the whole group.
| Coaching Focus | Observable Sign | Development Question |
|---|---|---|
| Listening | Interrupts, redirects, or closes discussion early | What information might you miss when you respond before others finish? |
| Ownership | Takes over tasks or decisions | What could another person learn if you stayed involved without controlling the work? |
| Credit | Describes shared results as personal wins | Who contributed, and how will you make that contribution visible? |
| Standards | Corrects publicly or rejects alternatives quickly | How can you protect quality while preserving dignity and initiative? |
| Influence | Relies on expertise, status, or urgency | What would make people choose to follow your lead rather than comply with it? |
Use Direct, Human-Centered Coaching
A productive session should include curiosity and accountability. Ask the employee to describe a recent situation from their perspective, then compare that account with observed evidence and stakeholder feedback. The coach can explore what the person feared would happen if they delegated, slowed down, or allowed a different approach.
Powerful questions focus attention without forcing a predetermined answer. “What did your intervention make possible?” can be followed by “What did it make less likely?” Other useful prompts include, “Where did your urgency help, and where did it reduce ownership?” and “What response would you want from a colleague in the same situation?”
Practice is essential. Role-play a difficult team meeting, a delegation conversation, or a moment when a colleague challenges the employee’s approach. Let the person try a new response, receive precise feedback, and repeat it. A leadership coach can help distinguish authentic behavior change from a temporary performance designed only to satisfy the manager.
Create Accountability Through Feedback Loops
Behavior change becomes credible when it is tracked in real situations. Establish a short review cycle with one or two indicators, such as peer feedback, delegation quality, meeting participation, or follow-through on shared decisions. Avoid turning the process into surveillance. The purpose is to make progress visible and provide timely adjustment.
A 360-degree feedback process can reveal patterns that a manager cannot see. Collect input from peers, direct reports, project partners, and internal clients, while protecting appropriate confidentiality. Ask respondents to comment on specific behaviors and their effects rather than offering broad personality judgments.
The manager should hold regular coaching check-ins. Review one recent success, one difficult moment, and one experiment for the next period. If the employee responds well, acknowledge the change clearly. If the behavior continues, explain the performance implications and the consequences of failing to meet the collaboration standard.
Make Teamwork Part Of The Operating System
Individual coaching will have limited effect if the surrounding culture rewards lone heroes. Teams need clear decision rights, shared goals, transparent information, and agreed norms for disagreement. When responsibilities are ambiguous, a forceful high performer can easily occupy every gap.
Managers can design conditions that support healthier influence. Rotate meeting facilitation, assign joint ownership for important outcomes, document decisions, and recognize people who enable others to perform. Build peer feedback into project retrospectives so collaboration is discussed as part of delivery rather than treated as a personal issue.
The Communication Council can support this work through leadership development, executive coaching, management coaching, and team-based behavior change programs. Human-centered coaching can be reinforced with AI-powered learning journeys that provide practice, reflection, and progress tracking across an organization. Enterprise integrations can help connect development goals with existing performance and learning systems.
Practical Coaching Moves That Shift Behavior
Use these actions to turn an uncomfortable conversation into a focused development process:
- Describe two or three recent behaviors, their observable impact, and the standard required going forward.
- Ask the employee to identify the fear, assumption, or pressure driving the behavior.
- Agree on one collaboration experiment, such as delegating a meaningful decision or inviting challenge before responding.
- Gather brief feedback from relevant colleagues after the experiment and compare intention with impact.
- Recognize progress publicly when appropriate, while addressing setbacks promptly and privately.
The coach should preserve the person’s ambition while expanding how that ambition is expressed. High standards, decisiveness, and technical excellence remain valuable. The development target is the ability to produce results through other people without diminishing their confidence, ownership, or voice.
When the employee learns to combine excellence with generosity, the organization gains more than a less disruptive colleague. It gains a stronger leader who can scale expertise, retain talent, and build trust under pressure.
Start the conversation with evidence, empathy, and a clear expectation that collaboration is part of performance. With structured coaching and consistent accountability, a high performer can become the kind of team player whose influence increases both individual achievement and collective capability.