Toxic. Uncoachable. Exposed.

Why Coaching Doesn’t Work on the Employee Who’s Already Chosen Control

Most leaders are taught to coach. We’re trained to approach performance issues with curiosity, to assume positive intent, and to guide people toward improvement with patience and professionalism. And when it works, it’s powerful. People feel seen, supported, and challenged in all the right ways. But when it doesn’t work—and you’re face-to-face with someone who is knowingly playing games—leadership becomes something else entirely.

You’ve likely had that experience. You follow all the steps. You schedule the conversation, stay composed, explain your expectations clearly, document the exchange, and give them room to self-correct. You leave the meeting thinking you’ve handled it. But then the shift begins. The employee starts rewriting the narrative. They twist your words, retell the story to the team, and position themselves as the misunderstood victim. Meanwhile, you’re stuck questioning yourself: Did I come across too strong? Did I miss something? Am I making this personal?

Let me be clear: you're not imagining it, and you're not overreacting. You're just dealing with someone who’s already decided they’re not going to change—and is smart enough to make you doubt your leadership in the process.

We don’t talk enough about the employees who use charm, confusion, and passive resistance as tools to maintain control. This isn’t about skill gaps or training needs. This is about power. These individuals often mask deeper insecurities like jealousy and entitlement behind surface-level compliance. They nod in meetings and do the bare minimum, but they are fully aware of the damage they’re doing to morale, trust, and team performance.

These are the people who perform well enough to stay employed but never enough to elevate the team. They thrive in ambiguity. They weaponize silence, hide behind personality differences, and create emotional tension that wears leaders down. Every correction becomes a conflict. Every boundary is met with pushback. And every day you wait to act, the rest of your team watches and wonders what behavior is actually acceptable around here.

This is why traditional coaching doesn’t work. Coaching is a leadership tool designed for the willing—for the employee who’s stuck but open to change. It’s not built for the manipulative, the chronically defensive, or those who rely on emotional warfare to dodge accountability. When you continue to coach someone who’s playing a control game, you don’t get growth. You get chaos.

There’s a moment in every leader’s journey when you have to stop managing around the most disruptive person on your team. It’s usually the moment after a failed coaching attempt—the one where they pretend to take ownership but change nothing. It’s the moment when you realize you're spending more energy on one person’s dysfunction than you are on the rest of your team’s development. And that’s when you have to shift your strategy from recovery to protection.

The reality is this: when discipline has no consequence, it becomes a suggestion. Employees don’t remember the conversation; they remember what happens next. High performers don’t stay because you’re fair—they stay because you’re consistent. And when people see toxic behavior going unchecked, they don’t assume you’re being patient. They assume you’ve given up.

You’re not too harsh for holding the line. You’re not the villain for protecting the team. You’re not ending someone’s chance—you’re ending a pattern that should’ve ended months ago. There’s no loyalty in allowing dysfunction to continue unchecked. And there’s no leadership in waiting for someone to “get it” when they’ve already made it clear they won’t.

If you’re dealing with someone who fits this pattern, I want you to stop questioning yourself. Start questioning what your silence is costing you. Because you can’t build a high-performing team while you’re protecting someone who’s actively undermining it. The longer you tolerate it, the more your culture suffers—and the more your team begins to resent you for it.

I break this down in detail in my video, How to Deal With Toxic Coworkers and When Coaching Doesn’t Work. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/nq3jWRmUWZM. In it, I go deeper into the psychology behind toxic coworkers, how they manipulate well-meaning leaders, and what to do when you realize coaching has officially failed.

Understanding the pattern isn’t enough when you’re standing in the moment, and the conversation is live.

When coaching stops working, what matters most is how you respond next. The wrong words create more resistance. The right ones reestablish boundaries without turning the situation into a power struggle.

If you want support in those moments, the Toxic People Toolkit app gives you on-demand guidance and language you can access in real time. It’s built for leaders dealing with manipulation, chronic defensiveness, and control-based behavior who need clarity without escalating the conflict or questioning themselves afterward.

You don’t need to keep guessing what to say.
You need steady footing when the pressure is on.

Access the Toxic People Toolkit app at www.askbrendahow.com