Your Team Would Take a Pay Cut to Leave You

Career · Leadership

By Feras Asakrieh · 4 min read · Issue #47

A friend of mine runs a big commercial team. Strong leader. Strong numbers. The kind of results that get you called up to the front of the room at kickoff.

Not long ago he told me about something he couldn't shake.

His top performer had just quit.

That part happens. People leave. What stopped him was the offer. His best person took a pay cut to go.

"Who does that?" he said. "We're winning. They were winning. Why would anyone take less money to leave a team doing this well?"

So he started digging.

What he found had nothing to do with money. Nothing to do with the role, or the new company.

It was the culture on the team.

The numbers were so strong that nobody had looked closely at how the team was running. Not him. Not the people above him. Nobody. When the scoreboard looks that good, you stop checking the locker room.

His top performer was in that locker room every day. And decided it was worth paying to get out.

Good Numbers Hide Bad Teams

Your results don't tell you how your team feels. They tell you what your team produced. Those are two different things. And the gap between them is where your best people walk out.

A new report caught my eye this week. Businessolver's 2026 State of Workplace Empathy Report found that one in three CEOs now call their own culture toxic. That's up 25 points from last year. Four in ten employees say the same.

Then it gets uncomfortable. Leaders at toxic companies were twice as likely to report strong financial growth. And those same leaders rated their companies higher on empathy than leaders everywhere else.

Read that again. The places that feel the worst to work at can have the best numbers. And the people running them think they're doing great.

One more number. 66% of employees said they would move to a more caring workplace, even if it meant a pay cut of up to 20%.

My friend's top performer wasn't strange. They were the 66%.

Why Good Leaders Miss It

Nobody wakes up wanting to run a team people escape from. Most leaders who lose people this way are good at their jobs. That's the problem. Being good at the numbers gives you a reason not to look anywhere else.

And the thoughts that keep us blind all sound reasonable.

"The numbers are great." They are. That's why nobody is asking questions.

"Nobody's complained." People don't complain to the person who decides their bonus. They complain to each other. Then they update their resume.

"My door is always open." An open door only works if walking through it feels safe. Most people will never test that.

"I'm under a lot of pressure too." You are. And whatever you don't absorb lands on them, usually louder.

"They're paid well." My friend thought so too. Good pay keeps people from leaving for a little more. It doesn't stop them from leaving for less.

Here Is How To See It Before They Go

1. Stop letting your numbers speak for your team.

Your dashboard is a report on output. It says nothing about what it cost to get there. So put a second question next to every strong month: how did we get this? Sit in on a team meeting you normally skip and just watch. Who talks. Who doesn't. Who looks at the table when a number gets called out. If the results are great and the room feels tight, believe the room.

2. Watch who stopped pushing back.

Healthy teams argue. People tell you a plan won't work, a target is off, a process is broken. When that goes quiet, it isn't alignment. It's people who decided speaking up isn't worth it anymore. Think about your two or three strongest people. When did one of them last disagree with you out loud? If you can't remember, that's your answer.

3. Ask one question that gets a true answer.

"How's everything going?" gets you "good." Every time. Ask something that's hard to dodge. In your next one on one, try this: "If you left this team, what would the reason be?" Then stay quiet. Don't explain, don't defend. The first answer will be polite. Ask "What else?" The second answer is usually the real one.

4. Check what pressure you pass down.

Every leader carries pressure from above. The question is how much of it you filter and how much you hand straight to your team, turned up. Scroll through your last week of messages to your team. Count how many were about results and deadlines, and how many were about the people doing the work. If it's twenty to one, your team already knows what you care about.

Final Thoughts

I run retention for a living. Years of watching customers leave taught me one thing.

People almost never leave loudly. They go quiet first. They stop asking questions. They stop pushing back. They stop telling you what's wrong. By the time they leave, they decided months ago.

Your team works the same way.

My friend didn't lose his top performer the day the resignation came in. He lost them on all the days nobody looked.

The numbers will tell you if your team is winning.

Only your people can tell you if they want to stay.

Your Team Would Take a Pay Cut to Leave You

Subscribe to the Newsletter