Why High Performers Leave, and What CEOs Must Do to Keep Them
Summary
The article argues that the traditional employer–employee compact has effectively broken down: pay and progression increasingly favour hierarchy and those with negotiating leverage, not steady high performers. Quiet quitting and falling tenure are symptoms of a compensation system that rewards title and control rather than measurable impact. The author outlines practical fixes — paying for value, creating dual career paths, enabling market-based adjustments, and building transparent, data-informed reward frameworks — and warns that doing nothing will cost organisations their best talent.
Key Points
- The old compact of loyalty for security is dead; modern markets reward bargaining power, not tenure.
- Pay has decoupled from productivity: top executives capture disproportionate gains while many steady contributors fall behind.
- Quiet quitting and shorter tenures reflect a rational market response, not just a cultural trend.
- CEOs must shift from rewarding hierarchy (headcount, budget control) to rewarding measurable impact.
- Practical steps: parallel progression paths, market-based compensation adjustments, exponential recognition for outsized contributions, and outcome-focused metrics.
- Transparency, data-driven decisions, and flexible recognition are key to fairer, more effective pay systems.
- The cost of inaction includes lost morale, institutional knowledge and client confidence — and a weaker competitive position.
Content Summary
The piece opens by challenging the assumption that pay naturally aligns with value. Using evidence on job-switcher wage gains, falling median tenures and long-term wage stagnation, the author shows how market dynamics and rent extraction at the top have hollowed out the middle. The result: high performers either leave quietly or reduce effort to a safe minimum.
To address this, the article recommends redesigning reward systems to reflect contribution rather than job title. Specific actions include parallel (dual) career ladders for individual contributors, more strategic use of compensation to retain outliers, removing recognition caps, and shifting performance measures toward outcomes like revenue influenced, problems solved and innovation delivered. The author stresses that equity means fairness under a transparent framework — not equal pay for unequal contribution.
Context and Relevance
This is essential reading for leaders in organisations facing high turnover, lagging productivity or a talent drain. The article connects long-term macro trends (wage stagnation, rising executive rents) with immediate people-management problems (quiet quitting, short tenures). Its prescriptions align with broader moves in HR and talent strategy toward skills-based pay, pay transparency and flexible reward systems.
Author style
Punchy — the author blends data and personal observation to make a sharp, practical argument. The tone presses leaders to act: the rules that created today’s organisations won’t secure tomorrow’s talent.
Why should I read this
If you run a team or run the business, read this. It’s a straight-talking, evidence-backed wake-up call that shows why your best people might be slipping away — quietly — and gives you clear, practical moves to stop the haemorrhage. We did the reading so you can act faster.