This practice creates a culture of fear, not performance. It may boost short-term aggression in numbers, but over time it destroys trust, learning, and real ownership.
Last week I heard a story about an “unbelievable” company culture.
The company has four sales departments with four leaders. Once a quarter, they all sit down with the CEO to review results, obstacles, and achievements.
At the end of the session, there is one simple rule:
A new leader is hired and is “protected” from being fired at the next session.
On paper it looks like a sharp, meritocratic system: only the best survive, underperformers are constantly replaced, and the company is always raising the bar.
In reality, this is not a performance culture. It is a rotating elimination game.
What this system really rewards
When people are measured only relative to each other, not against clear standards, they do whatever it takes to avoid being last.
In that environment, leaders are pushed to:
- Optimize for short-term numbers at any cost, ignoring long-term client relationships, brand, and team health.
- Hide problems instead of surfacing them, because transparency can make you look weak.
- Compete against peers instead of collaborating, sharing best practices, or helping another department succeed.
The “protected” new leader quickly learns one lesson: survival matters more than learning.
Their first goal is not to understand the business and build a strong team, but to make sure someone else looks worse at the next session.
The hidden costs for the company
From the outside, this may look like tough, results-driven leadership.
Inside, it creates massive hidden costs:
- Constant turnover in critical roles, with lost knowledge, disrupted client relationships, and onboarding costs every quarter.
- A culture where leaders push pressure downward, burning out their teams to avoid being the one fired.
- No psychological safety: people are afraid to admit mistakes, ask for help, or experiment — exactly the behaviors needed for innovation.
Over time, the best leaders — the ones who care about people, systems, and sustainable growth — quietly leave.
What remains are those most willing to play political games and externalize damage onto their teams.
What a healthy alternative looks like
A strong performance culture can be demanding and compassionate at the same time.
The same quarterly meeting with the CEO could look very different:
- Clear, transparent standards for success instead of “one of you must lose.”
- Focus on root causes, shared learning, and cross-team support when a department struggles.
- Consequences for chronic underperformance, yes — but after clear expectations, coaching, and support, not an automatic public execution.
The question should not be:
The better question is:
What to think about this practice
So what should we think about this “unbelievable” culture?
It is not brave, modern leadership. It is an outdated, fear-based mechanism that mistakes anxiety for ambition.
It may produce a few good quarters. It almost never produces a great company.
Final thought
If a business truly wants high performance, the better challenge is harder and more adult:
Build a culture where leaders are accountable for results and for how those results are achieved.
Build a culture where people can be honest about problems.
Build a culture where improvement is a shared responsibility — not a quarterly public execution.