Moving Low Performers Around Is Not Leadership

Editor’s note: This essay sits within the Cultivated library on leadership, systems, and responsibility. It examines why moving low performers around organisations is a systemic failure of leadership — and what ethical ownership actually requires.

Moving People Around Is Not Leadership

I was recently speaking with a group of senior executives.
They were swapping stories about how they “move problem people around.”

One admitted they did the same during an agile transformation. Anyone who “didn’t get it” was relocated. The room nodded. Some even applauded.

In another organisation, an entire department had been formed from displaced low performers — a kind of organisational limbo with no clear purpose.

Let’s be clear:
this is not leadership.
It is burden passing.

The Hidden Cost of Shuffling People

Moving low performers around feels convenient.
It avoids difficult conversations.
It preserves political capital.
It keeps the org chart tidy.

It also:

• damages trust across teams
• transfers problems rather than solving them
• erodes dignity for the individual
• wastes organisational energy
• hides systemic failure

Passing people around is organisational debt.

Low Performance Is a Systemic Signal

Most underperformance is not malicious.
It is structural:

• unclear expectations
• poor onboarding
• mismatched roles
• absent coaching
• broken processes

As W. Edwards Deming observed, most performance issues come from the system, not the individual.

Moving people around treats symptoms, not causes.

Ownership Is the Leadership Work

Leadership means owning uncomfortable problems.

If someone is underperforming, the responsibility is shared:

• the manager who hired them
• the system that failed to support them
• the organisation that designed the role

Paul Hawken put it bluntly: hiring and leadership practices are responsible for a large share of organisational problems.

What Ethical Leadership Looks Like

Ethical performance management is simple, but not easy:

• Be explicit about what “good” looks like
• Give timely, behavioural feedback
• Coach and support improvement
• Adjust roles where fit is genuinely wrong
• Escalate when improvement does not happen
• Treat people with dignity throughout

Avoiding this work by moving people around benefits no one.

Fix the System, Then Invest in People

Spend most of your time fixing the hard side of the system:
processes, communication, workflows, incentives.

Then invest deeply in people — especially your high performers. They are not variables in the system - they are the system too.
They amplify systems.
They model behaviours.
They retain talent.

But do not abandon those struggling.
That is both inefficient and inhumane.

Responsibility Over Comfort

Leadership is not about avoiding difficult conversations.
It is about owning them.

Moving people around is organisational avoidance.
Addressing performance with clarity and care is organisational maturity.

Final Word

Low performance is not a problem to be passed along.
It is a signal to be understood, owned, and addressed.

Leadership is uncomfortable by design.
That is why it matters.