Written by Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ, a top-rated leadership development and employee survey firm. Mark Murphy is the author of the international management bestseller "Hundred Percenters."

“How do you define a low performer?” It’s a question frequently asked of Leadership IQ trainers during our management training sessions. And one that might seem like a pretty simple topic to address (“A low performer is someone whose performance is low.”). But our research into the subject reveals that the answer to this question is actually a bit more complex.

It’s helpful to view performance as having two dimensions: Skills and Attitude. (You can undoubtedly come up with others, but our numerous studies show that almost all attributes of low performance ultimately get subsumed by Skills or Attitude). The general rule of thumb is: People who are incompetent AND unpleasant can usually be safely classified as low performers (they’ve got lousy skills and bad attitudes). Unfortunately, low performance isn’t always this cut and dry. We’ve also got people who have great attitudes but terrible skills. And then there are those who have stellar skills but bad attitudes. These are two very different categories of performance, but we now know that both can be considered low performers.

We call the people who have great attitudes, but lousy skills, the “Bless Their Hearts.” For anyone who hasn’t spent much time in the Deep South, “Bless your heart” is a Southern phrase that loosely translates to: “Thanks for trying, but what you just did was totally wrong/dumb/clueless. And you’re lucky my code of Southern gentility prohibits me from saying anything more, because I might just slip and say something really mean.” [Note: While I currently live in the South, I grew up in the North where we instead use the phrase “God love ‘em,” when what we really mean is: “I’m sure they meant well, but man alive, that was dumb.”]

Whatever phrase you use, if you’re utilizing it to describe someone in your organization, it may be time to reevaluate that employee’s performance. Because someone with a great attitude, who’s trying and genuinely wants to please, but who repeatedly fails to get the job done right, isn’t an “almost” high performer. God love ‘em, but that person is a low performer. He or she lacks the needed skills, and no amount of amazing attitude is going to make up for that. You can root for this person every step of the way (and who doesn’t want to see a plucky underdog succeed), but that doesn’t change the low performing facts.

The other category of low performer is the exact opposite of the “Bless Their Hearts.” The name we give the folks who have great skills, but lousy attitudes, is “Talented Terrors,” and no, we’re not leaning towards hyperbole on that second part. These people are like emotional vampires that suck your lifeblood while fooling you into believing you have to take it because you can’t live without their amazing skills.

In one of our studies, we asked 6,241 employees to list characteristics that defined these great skills/lousy attitude folks. The top four responses were as follows, in order of importance:
• Negative attitude
• Stirs-up trouble
• Blames others
• Lacks initiative

As difficult as these folks are, many organizations let them slide because on those occasions when they do decide to deliver some work, they can deliver excellent results. But make no mistake, Talented Terrors are low performers, and they may be the most frustrating kind there is. There’s a strange power struggle that often occurs with highly skilled/poor attitude employees. They know you need them, and they will often test your limits to see just how much they can get away with. It’s enough to make you pray for the delay of rush hour traffic in the morning, just so you can get a little more quiet time by yourself without all their drama and toxicity.

With this new perspective on performance you can now correctly answer the question, “How do you define a low performer?” Now you know that a low performer is someone who lacks the proper Skills, Attitude--or both.

If you’d like more information on managing these folks, and improving their performance, check out our upcoming webinar on the topic. It’s called Managing Talented People With Bad Attitudes.