Hidden cost of shielding underperforming executives

Long before an organisation’s failures appear in its accounts, they can become visible in the behaviour of its best employees. The manager who once challenged weak decisions falls silent. The officer who routinely stayed late begins leaving on time. A capable colleague resigns without saying much. Each may have reached the same conclusion: effort counts for less in a workplace where powerful people are protected from the consequences of failure.

The most revealing silence in an organisation often follows a simple question: what happens when the person at the top fails?

For the junior employee, the answer is usually clear: a query, a warning, a promotion withheld. Higher up, certainty fades. Missed targets acquire context. Repeated failures attract patience. Requests for explanations become sensitive matters. Eventually, everyone learns where accountability ends, although nobody marks the boundary.

That knowledge changes how people work.

Shielding an underperforming executive does more damage than delayed projects or disappointing results. It reaches the diligent employee who reconsiders the value of effort, the manager who learns to conceal uncomfortable facts, and the board that gradually confuses loyalty to its appointee with responsibility to the institution.

The executive keeps the position. Everyone else carries the contradiction.

In Nigeria, this protection has a familiar vocabulary. Someone is “well connected”. There are “sensitivities”. The chairman “understands”. Such phrases can describe legitimate complexities. Leadership requires judgment, and difficult circumstances deserve consideration. But discretion loses credibility when it repeatedly protects those who already possess the greatest influence.

An institution may have elaborate appraisal systems yet struggle to answer its simplest governance question: do those who enforce the standards also submit to them?

The source of distrust is this uneven application of responsibility: an asymmetry of accountability. Two people fail to deliver. One must explain. The other is explained away.

Fairness, however, requires more than identical treatment. Executives make decisions whose value may emerge over years. Economic shocks can derail sound strategies. Punishing every disappointing result encourages timidity and rewards those skilled at manufacturing favourable appearances.

Leaders need room to make honest mistakes, explain setbacks and recover. That room must have boundaries. Support has a purpose, agreed expectations and a review date. Protection becomes impunity when explanation is optional, and improvement can be postponed indefinitely.

Consider the employee watching this arrangement unfold. She has worked under pressure, delivered with limited resources and accepted responsibility for mistakes. Above her, repeated failures appear to carry no consequences.

She may lack the full picture. Confidentiality may properly prevent disclosure. But when the pattern persists without credible assurance that scrutiny occurs, she begins to revise her understanding of success.

Perhaps performance matters less than proximity.

She may leave. More quietly, she may remain and withdraw. She stops volunteering ideas, challenging weak decisions or accepting responsibility beyond her job description. Her name stays on the payroll; much of her contribution disappears.

• Integrity, character vital for sustainable economic growth – Coleman MD
• NGX chairman urges African firms to think global
• Erosion of values undermining youths’ leadership readiness — Ex-lawmaker

Management may respond with an engagement survey or another retreat. Yet exhortations to demonstrate ownership sound hollow when responsibility flows downward, and protection flows upward. Employees learn an organisation’s values by watching what happens when influential people breach them.

The next casualty is candour. When an executive becomes difficult to question, reporting begins to accommodate that executive’s comfort. Problems are softened, warnings delayed and failing projects described as progressing. Protection then corrupts the evidence needed to assess performance.

A board may believe it is preserving stability while allowing failure to deepen.

Directors must therefore examine their own part in the arrangement. They may have appointed the executive. Acknowledging underperformance may expose their judgment. Personal ties or political pressure may make another extension easier than an honest review.

But oversight also requires a willingness to reconsider one’s decisions. An appointment cannot become a permanent obligation to defend the appointee.

For public institutions, the costs extend to citizens who depend on services and deserve explanations about the use of collective resources. Scrutiny must remain fair: allegations require evidence, and disappointing performance does not establish misconduct. A credible process protects these distinctions while ensuring that seniority never cancels the obligation to answer.

Reform begins before that obligation is tested. Boards should set measurable expectations, conduct independent evaluations, and establish clear procedures for persistent underperformance. Rewards should reflect verified outcomes. Recovery plans need milestones and deadlines. Employees need secure routes to independent oversight. Decisions to retain struggling executives should be documented with reasons that withstand scrutiny.

These measures give judgment a defensible basis and make favouritism harder to conceal.

Transparency need not become public humiliation. Institutions can respect confidentiality while showing that reviews occur, concerns are addressed, and consequences follow established standards.

Ultimately, shielding an executive shifts the cost of failure onto people with less power to resist. Colleagues compensate, capable employees depart, customers receive less, and trust erodes.

Every board should therefore ask: are we helping this leader recover, or requiring the institution to finance their exemption?

The answer must lead to action: support with conditions, scrutiny without favour, and consequences when improvement fails. Leadership earns its authority partly by being willing to answer. When boards excuse that obligation, they weaken the standards they expect everyone else to uphold.

Dr Peterside is a management and leadership turnaround expert.