During a workshop with a corporate client, I asked two breakout groups to draft their inputs on whiteboards set up around the room.

The first group grabbed markers and started writing immediately.

The second group stood frozen. Two minutes passed, and their board remained completely blank.

I walked over, assuming they needed help framing their ideas. Instead, I saw five or six capable professionals staring at the board with genuine hesitation. When I asked why they hadn’t started, one person looked around and whispered, "We don't have dry-erase markers, and we're terrified of what will happen if a certain colleague finds out we wrote on this board."

Every single person in that group had the same look on their face. They weren't afraid of failing the assignment or missing a strategic deadline; they were terrified of a co-worker.

In an operational environment known for solving complex business problems, a simple whiteboard marker had paralyzed a team. Why? Because a single individual’s bad behavior had gone unchecked for so long that it established a culture of fear.

This experience highlights a fundamental flaw in corporate performance management: Most organizations are great at measuring output, but completely blind to measuring behavior.

The Popcorn Metric: Output vs. Behavior

To keep the defenses down, I’ll provide a simple example, far from the rigorous demands of your actual job, for illustrative purposes only. 

Imagine your boss gives you a simple operational assignment: go to the grocery store and buy 12 bags of Kettle Corn within a $30 budget.

You return an hour later with 12 bags of Kettle Corn and $4 in change.

If your organization only measures results, you get an "A." You delivered the target output within the financial constraints.

But what if we measured behavior?

• What if we asked the cashier what it was like to check you out? Did you roll your eyes at the long line, or were you patient?
• What if we checked the parking lot camera? Did you speed past pedestrians, or cut off another driver to snag a front-row spot?
• What if you hit a parked car on the way out and drove off without leaving a note because you were in a hurry to deliver the popcorn on time?

You got the popcorn. But you left a trail of destruction in your wake.

In corporate America, we promote "popcorn buyers" every single day. We elevate leaders who hit their quarterly numbers, land the client, or execute the project, while ignoring the fact that they berate analysts, interrupt colleagues, hoard information, creating a toxic working environment.

When you promote a high performer who behaves badly, you send a clear message to the entire enterprise: Results matter; people don't.

"What Is It Like to Be on the Other Side of You?"

At the core of our work behaviors are how we interact with and relate to others. Author and speaker Ryan Leak poses a powerful question that every leader should ask in the mirror: "What is it like to be on the other side of you?"

What is it like to be on the other side of your emails? Your Slack messages? Your feedback when a mistake is made? Your tone during a tight operational deadline?

When employees struggle to get along at work, leaders must diagnose the root cause. Usually, conflict falls into one of two categories:

1. Personal Preferences (Petty Friction)

One employee prefers digital files; another insists on printing paper. One person is a morning bird who wants meetings at 8:00 AM; another works best in the late afternoon. One team member is Gen X; another is Gen Z.

• The Leader's Role: Set a firm expectation that personal preferences are not requirements for doing business. A leader must refuse to let petty, stylistic differences derail the mission.

2. Actual Operational Obstacles (Behavioral Friction)

If two team members must collaborate by 11:00 AM to deliver a client report by 12:00 PM, and one person routinely shows up at 11:30 AM, that isn't a preference difference. No, that’s an operational bottleneck and a sign of disrespect.

Similarly, if a manager routinely interrupts colleagues in meetings, which science proves makes active listening impossible, or creates an atmosphere where people are afraid to write on a whiteboard, that is an operational threat.

The Executive Paradox: Why Behavioral Metrics Become Dominant

There is a shift that occurs as you ascend from an individual contributor to an executive: Your direct control over results shrinks, while your responsibility to set behavioral tone expands.

At the C-suite level, frontline managers and operational teams drive the day-to-day results. An executive's job is to influence behaviors, establish psychological safety, resolve cross-functional friction, and model corporate values.

If an organization fails to evaluate behavior early on, an individual contributor with bad habits eventually becomes an executive who destroys culture at scale. And when that happens, unlearning those bad behaviors is nearly impossible.

How Leaders Fix the Gap

To build an enterprise where results and behaviors are held in equal balance, leaders must implement three operational shifts:

1. Measure the "How," Not Just the "What": Incorporate qualitative feedback into performance reviews. Conduct 360-degree reviews, pulse surveys, and informal skip-level conversations to understand what it feels like to work with your leaders.
2. Refuse to Promote Toxic Top Performers: The moment you promote someone who hits their numbers but destroys team cohesion, you lose legitimate leadership authority. High performance must be a prerequisite, and cultural alignment must be the threshold.
3. Keep the Main Thing Primary: Drive a culture centered on serving clients, generating sustainable returns, and treating colleagues with dignity. When leaders model unpretentious humanity and zero tolerance for petty politics, the team stops worrying about whiteboard markers and starts focusing on enterprise execution.

When you measure both the output and the behavior required to achieve it, you build an organization where people don't just deliver results, they actually enjoy working together to achieve them.

Is your leadership team struggling with cross-functional friction or toxic performance dynamics? Schedule a strategic conversation with Bonafide Leaders to learn how executive coaching can align performance metrics with enterprise culture.