Why do we keep rewarding toxic brilliance at work? | Francesca O'Connor | TEDxWorthing
Francesca O'Connor argues that workplaces consistently reward 'brilliant assholes' - charismatic, high-performing individuals who achieve results while leaving emotional damage in their wake. She explores why we enable this toxic brilliance through psychological biases and proposes micro-interventions to broaden our definition of workplace excellence.
Summary
Francesca O'Connor begins by sharing her personal experience with toxic leadership, describing how a former boss criticized her emotions as problematic after a difficult work period. She identifies her pattern of being drawn to charismatic, creatively brilliant leaders who deliver results but use bullying and belittling tactics. The speaker explains how these 'brilliant assholes' create intoxicating work environments where being in their favor feels empowering, but falling out of favor becomes psychologically devastating. O'Connor describes how this treatment led her to question her own abilities, even considering anti-depressants to make herself more 'palatable' at work. She then examines why society tolerates this behavior, noting that we justify it by saying these individuals 'deliver results.' However, she argues that most aren't doing life-saving work - they're in advertising, PR, or marketing roles that don't warrant such tolerance. O'Connor presents serious consequences of this dynamic, citing aviation disasters and medical errors where junior staff couldn't challenge toxic senior leadership. She references statistics showing that 30% of NHS staff don't feel safe speaking up about unsafe practices, and that 16 million working days are lost annually to work-related mental health issues. The speaker identifies several psychological biases that perpetuate this problem: the halo effect (assuming competence in one area means competence everywhere), moral licensing (giving passes to high achievers), self-preservation (fear of career damage), confidence being rewarded over competence, and denial about the damage being caused. She concludes by offering three practical solutions: spotting the cost behind the shine by asking who isn't being heard, widening the circle to include quieter voices and preventing interruptions, and rewarding the right kind of brilliance by recognizing behind-the-scenes contributors who lift others up.
About this episode
In her talk, Francesca examines The Brilliance Bias – a cultural pattern where “brilliant arseholes” are celebrated and protected, even when their behaviour creates stress, harm, or silence around them. She explores why workplaces and institutions often reward confidence over competence, charisma over care, and performance over genuine impact. Through her own lived experience, Francesca reveals what happens when you become caught in this dynamic, the emotional toll it takes, and the moment that sparked her decision to break the pattern. She also uncovers the wider social cost of elevating the wrong people: burnout, disengagement, lost innovation, and the exclusion of diverse voices. Finally, Francesca offers practical steps for shifting how we recognise, reward, and amplify true brilliance – the kind rooted in empathy, collaboration, and lifting others up. Francesca O’Connor is a workplace culture and communication expert, and co-founder of HappyHQ. She helps organisations build environments where people feel respected, trusted, and able to do their best work. She works with agencies, global brands, and universities to support leaders and teams to communicate clearly, handle challenge well, and create psychological safety rather than fear. Francesca’s work focuses on the gap between the leaders we are taught to admire and the leadership we actually need. She helps people speak with presence (not performance), build trust, and influence without ego. Because who we reward shapes the culture we create. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
Key Insights
- O'Connor reveals that charismatic toxic leaders create intoxicating work environments where one raised eyebrow can either elevate or destroy an employee, leading to employees working longer and harder to stay in their favor
- The deadliest plane crash in history occurred in 1977 when 583 people died partly because co-pilots didn't feel they could challenge the captain when they saw risk, demonstrating how toxic leadership dynamics can have fatal consequences
- The Health and Safety Executive reported that 16 million working days were lost due to work-related stress, anxiety, and depression, with three-quarters of a million people signed off sick not from physical injuries but because work broke them mentally
- Research shows that confidence is often rewarded over actual competence, which explains how Elizabeth Holmes convinced seasoned investors to invest over $700 million in a blood test technology that didn't work
- O'Connor argues that improving every team member's performance by 1% creates a bigger cumulative impact on productivity than allowing one brilliant toxic person to reign free
Topics
Transcript
[0:05] [music] [clears throat] Your emotions are a problem. [clears throat and cough] Your emotions are a problem and they ruin everyone's experience of working with you. Something a former boss told me after a particularly grueling week at work. Now, it wasn't the first time I'd let that kind of comment slide, but that one stuck because the truth is I have a [0:36] type. Not in the tall, dark, handsome way. I mean, at work, for years, I was drawn to a certain kind of leader. You'll recognize the type. Fast-talking, razor sharp, very charismatic. And my kryptonite was the wildly creative ones. The ones that could sketch a vision of the future on a napkin and spin…
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