Mental Health Crisis at Work: When a High Performer Is Also a Bully

At a previous company, we had a vice president of corporate communications who was exceptionally talented. I’ll call him Mark. He thoroughly understood our business and created communications that were effective. He was considered one of the best in his profession.

However, Mark was also a bully. For too long, those two realities existed side by side. His professional talent gave the organization a reason to tolerate behavior that should never have been tolerated.

We Knew What Was Coming

Employees who went to work for Mark followed an increasingly predictable pattern. We would hire someone talented, and sometime later that employee would make an appointment with HR describing intimidation, mistreatment and an increasingly difficult work environment. Eventually, we could almost predict when his next battered employee would show up in HR.

Mark tended to direct his worst behavior toward people below him while behaving differently with those above him. It was classic “kiss up, kick down” behavior. When confronted, however, Mark denied the accusations and claimed he didn’t know what we were talking about.

Was he lying? Maybe. But it’s also possible he didn’t recognize his behavior as bullying. At some point, intent becomes less important than the pattern. When multiple employees independently describe substantially the same experience, leadership cannot ignore it simply because the accused executive disagrees.

The High-Performer Exception

Our HR manager investigated complaints, we counseled employees, we confronted Mark, and we raised the problem with leadership. Yet we repeatedly encountered the same reality: Mark was one of the most talented people in his profession.

This is where organizations get themselves into trouble. Results buy patience, and exceptional talent can quietly earn permission to behave in ways that would never be accepted from anyone else.

The problem with that logic is simple: It measures what the high performer produces without measuring what he destroys.

This Problem Is Bigger Than One Company

The Workplace Bullying Institute, founded by Drs. Gary and Ruth Namie, defines workplace bullying as repeated, health-harming mistreatment involving abusive conduct that can include verbal abuse, threatening, intimidating or humiliating behavior, and work sabotage.

Its 2024 national survey, conducted by Zogby Analytics, found that 32.3% of adult Americans reported being directly bullied at work, representing an estimated 52.2 million workers. Including witnesses, an estimated 74.8 million workers were affected, and bosses accounted for 55% of identified perpetrators.

Source: Workplace Bullying Institute, 2024 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey.

Too Often, the Target Pays the Price

Perhaps most disturbing is what happens to the people involved. According to the Workplace Bullying Institute, targets faced a 62% rate of job loss after being targeted, while perpetrators experienced negative consequences in 27% of cases.

When It Became an Ethical Issue

After three or four employees went through this cycle, I met with the CEO and said we had crossed a line. This was no longer simply an employee-relations problem. It had become an ethical problem.

We were recruiting talented people, often from good jobs, while knowing what they were likely walking into. Our recruiter would tell candidates that Mark had “very high standards.” That was our sanitized warning. Privately, it felt like we were sending people into a lion’s den.

Then We Hired Lisa

Eventually, we hired another excellent candidate. I’ll call her Lisa. Within weeks, she came to HR describing the same behaviors we had heard about before. Lisa needed the job, so she stayed and tried to make the situation work. We could tell the situation was weighing heavy on her. Lisa didn’t seem like herself.

Then one day, Lisa didn’t come to work and didn’t return our calls. We called her emergency contact who happened to be her mother, but she had not heard from her either. She drove to her house, but Lisa and her car were gone. After several hours, the Tulsa police happened to see a car parked alongside a highway. It was Lisa. She was in the driver’s seat but not fit to drive.

Lisa had experienced a severe anxiety attack. She was admitted to an inpatient mental health facility for treatment and was unable to return to her job.

Suddenly, all those conversations about Mark’s exceptional talent sounded very different.

What We Say Versus What We Tolerate

Companies routinely say that employees are their greatest asset. But statements like that mean very little if an organization knowingly allows a powerful or high-performing employee to mistreat the very people it claims to value.

That contradiction became impossible for HR to ignore. We could have put a beautiful sign in the lobby proclaiming “Our employees are our greatest asset.” But based on what employees were actually experiencing, we might as well have added a second sign underneath it: “Bullies are welcome here.”

That sounds harsh. But culture isn’t defined by the values we advertise. Culture is revealed by the behavior leadership is willing to tolerate.

What Does a High Performer Really Cost?

Mark was eventually fired, but tremendous damage had already been done.

The experience changed how I think about high performers and culture. Instead of asking how much the organization would lose by removing someone like Mark, leaders should ask what the organization is already losing by allowing that person to stay. Turnover and recruiting costs matter, but so do damaged trust, employees who stop speaking honestly, people who conclude HR cannot help them, and talented employees who simply leave.

We spent too long protecting the value Mark brought to the organization without adequately accounting for the value disappearing around him. Lisa was talented too. So were the employees who came before her.

The Real Leadership Test

Looking back, I don’t think the most important lesson from this experience is about Mark. Organizations will encounter difficult leaders and destructive behavior. The real test is what the organization does once the pattern becomes clear.

A company cannot credibly say that employees are its greatest asset while knowingly allowing one valuable employee to diminish everyone around him. Performance without humanity is not high performance.

When someone’s results consistently leave damaged people behind, leadership needs to stop asking, “How valuable is this person to our company?” The better question is, “How much are we willing to let other people pay for that person’s success?”

No employee should have to pay with their health.

Author’s note: This article is based on an actual workplace experience. Names and certain identifying details have been changed to protect the individuals involved.

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Kevin Kennemer is a workplace strategist, writer, speaker, and founder of LifeatWork, with more than 30 years of experience helping organizations turn culture and leadership into measurable business performance. While he is an expert in compensation and benefits plan design and communication, his work connects a strong workplace culture directly to revenue growth, stronger customer loyalty, and increased market share, making culture a competitive advantage, not simply an employee initiative.