Should Startups Hire Intense “Divas”?

Why Do Mediocre Employees Kill Startups Faster Than Toxic Ones?

The conventional wisdom says toxic employees destroy company culture. But something more insidious threatens startups: mediocrity. Employees who simply show up, meet minimum requirements, and avoid rocking the boat pose a greater existential threat to startups than those labeled “difficult.”

The True Cost of Mediocrity

Mediocre employees create cultures of passive acceptance. They establish invisible ceilings on what’s possible. They quietly normalize “good enough” instead of “exceptional.” This creeping mediocrity spreads gradually, making it harder to detect than outright toxicity.

In early-stage startups where every hire significantly influences culture and output, mediocrity compounds. One person who consistently accepts subpar work affects everyone’s standards. Soon, the baseline shifts downward across the organization. This subtle erosion of standards happens without drama or conflict—making it more dangerous precisely because it doesn’t trigger alarms.

The Hidden Value of Intensity

Intensely passionate employees who demand excellence often create discomfort. They challenge assumptions, question processes, and refuse to accept shortcuts. This behavior—often labeled difficult, demanding, or “diva-like”—actually protects startups from the greater danger of mediocrity.

The startup journey demands exceptional effort and standards. Building something from nothing requires people who care deeply, sometimes unreasonably, about quality and execution. When someone argues over seemingly small details, obsesses over edge cases, or grows frustrated when standards slip, they’re not being toxic—they’re demonstrating the exact intensity startups need to succeed.

This distinction matters tremendously. Founders who misinterpret productive intensity as toxicity risk creating teams that value harmony over excellence. They unintentionally select for employees who won’t challenge them—pleasant to work with, perhaps, but unlikely to drive the extraordinary outcomes startups require.

What’s the Difference Between Toxic Behavior and “Diva Energy”?

Understanding the crucial distinction between destructive toxicity and productive intensity helps founders build teams that maintain high standards without creating truly dysfunctional environments.

The Motivation Test

The clearest difference lies in motivation: toxic people care more about being right; divas care more about getting it right. This fundamental distinction manifests in observable behavior patterns.

Toxic employees focus on:

• Establishing personal dominance
• Winning arguments regardless of merit
• Taking credit while deflecting blame
• Creating drama that centers on them
• Undermining others’ contributions
• Pursuing personal agendas over company goals

Productively intense “divas” focus on:

• Improving the product or outcome
• Following evidence regardless of source
• Celebrating team wins while accepting responsibility
• Creating productive conflict around ideas
• Challenging work without attacking people
• Pursuing excellence aligned with company mission

This motivation difference creates entirely different impacts. Toxic behavior destroys trust and psychological safety. Diva intensity, while sometimes uncomfortable, ultimately strengthens the organization by upholding standards and fostering excellence.

The Impact Indicator

Another way to distinguish toxicity from productive intensity: examine the aftermath of their involvement. What happens after heated discussions or passionate disagreements?

With toxic employees, teams feel:

• Demoralized and hesitant to contribute
• Relief when the person isn’t involved
• Reluctant to share ideas or vulnerabilities
• Focused on protecting themselves
• Divided into factions or isolated individuals

With productive “divas,” teams feel:

• Challenged but ultimately respected
• Better results despite the intensity
• More willing to bring their best work
• Focused on the work itself
• Unified around higher standards

The presence of a productive diva might create tension, but it’s tension that ultimately serves the company’s mission. The outcomes improve even if the process feels uncomfortable. With truly toxic individuals, both the process and outcomes suffer.

How Does “Aligned Obsession” Create Startup Culture?

Real startup culture isn’t about superficial perks or maintaining comfortable harmony. It’s about aligned obsession—a shared commitment to excellence and mission that drives extraordinary results.

Beyond “Nice” Culture

Many startups misunderstand culture as simply creating pleasant environments where everyone gets along. This surface-level harmony does little to drive exceptional outcomes. Instead, the most effective startup cultures unite team members through shared obsession with the mission and standards.

This aligned obsession looks different from conventional “positive workplace culture”:

• Passionate debates replace polite agreement
• Constructive dissatisfaction drives improvement
• Challenging conversations happen regularly
• Standards remain non-negotiable
• Uncomfortable truths get voiced openly

These cultures don’t always feel comfortable. They demand more from everyone. They create environments where mediocrity gets exposed and excellence becomes expected. Yet they also create the conditions where truly exceptional work becomes possible.

The Burnout Paradox

Contrary to conventional wisdom, people don’t primarily burn out from hard work or high standards. They burn out from working with people who don’t care as much as they do. When someone remains passionate while surrounded by indifference, their energy eventually depletes.

Building culture around aligned obsession actually prevents burnout by ensuring that intensity gets matched and supported rather than isolated. When team members share commitment to excellence, the emotional burden distributes across the group rather than weighing down the few who care most deeply.

This creates sustainable intensity—where high standards don’t exhaust people because they’re upheld collectively. The startup moves faster and accomplishes more while actually reducing individual burnout risk compared to environments with mismatched commitment levels.

Why Do Founders Need to Embrace Their “Diva” Nature?

The founder sets the startup’s culture through their behavior. As the first “diva” in the organization, founders who suppress their intensity or apologize for their standards ultimately undermine the very qualities needed for success.

The Founder as Culture Catalyst

Founders naturally care more intensely about their startups than anyone else. This creates a baseline intensity that influences the entire organization. When founders embrace their productive intensity rather than trying to appear “easy to work with,” they establish cultures where passion becomes valued rather than problematic.

This requires self-awareness. Founders must distinguish between their productive intensity (high standards, passionate advocacy, relentless improvement) and genuinely counterproductive behaviors (inconsistency, blame-shifting, ego-driven decisions). The goal isn’t justifying bad behavior but recognizing that intensity itself isn’t inherently negative.

By embodying productive “diva energy,” founders create permission for others to care deeply. They demonstrate that passion for excellence is valued. This attracts similarly committed individuals while filtering out those who prefer comfort over impact.

Standards Transfer Through Behavior

Teams calibrate their standards based on leadership behavior more than statements. When founders tolerate mediocrity to avoid uncomfortable conversations, they communicate that excellence isn’t truly required. Conversely, when they uphold high standards despite discomfort, they demonstrate what truly matters.

This standards transfer happens through countless small interactions:

• How founders respond to subpar deliverables
• Whether they address small quality issues
• If they’re willing to delay launches for quality reasons
• How they handle disagreements about standards
• Whether they personally model the intensity they expect

Through these consistent behaviors, founders either reinforce or undermine the culture of aligned obsession. Their willingness to be the “first diva” determines whether intensity becomes a competitive advantage or gets suppressed for comfort.

How Can You Distinguish Divas Worth Hiring?

Not all intensity serves startups effectively. Identifying candidates with productive diva energy—rather than simply difficult personalities—requires specific evaluation approaches.

The Mission Alignment Test

True divas direct their intensity toward the mission rather than personal agendas. During interviews, assess whether their passion connects to outcomes or ego:

• Do they get most animated when discussing impact or personal recognition?
• When describing past conflicts, do they focus on work quality or interpersonal dynamics?
• Do their questions probe deeply into your mission and challenges?
• Can they articulate why specific standards matter beyond personal preference?
• Do they show genuine curiosity about your product and users?

Candidates whose intensity clearly serves the mission bring productive diva energy. Those whose intensity seems disconnected from outcomes likely bring drama without corresponding value.

The Standards Consistency Check

Productive divas apply consistent high standards rather than selectively enforcing them:

• Do they hold themselves to the same standards they expect from others?
• Can they articulate why their standards matter for users or business outcomes?
• Do they recognize appropriate tradeoffs or insist on perfection regardless of context?
• How do they react when you push back on their standards during interviews?
• Do they show evidence of raising standards in previous roles?

Consistent, mission-driven standards indicate valuable intensity. Arbitrary perfectionism or standards that shift based on personal preference suggest problematic patterns rather than productive passion.

The Feedback Response Indicator

How candidates give and receive feedback reveals whether their intensity will serve or hinder your startup:

• Can they deliver direct feedback without attacking personally?
• How do they respond when you challenge their ideas?
• Do they get defensive or remain focused on outcomes when criticized?
• Can they disagree while maintaining respect?
• Do they show evidence of having changed their minds based on new information?

Candidates who handle the discomfort of feedback exchanges while staying focused on outcomes display the emotional maturity needed to make their intensity productive rather than destructive.

How Do You Create Space for Productive Intensity?

Building environments where productive divas thrive while preventing truly toxic behavior requires deliberate culture-building strategies.

Establishing Psychological Safety with High Standards

Contrary to common misconceptions, psychological safety doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations or lowering standards. It means creating environments where people feel safe expressing concerns, challenging ideas, and being themselves—without fear of personal attacks or retribution.

Develop practices that separate challenging the work from challenging the person:

• Normalize phrases like “I have concerns about this approach” rather than “Your approach is wrong”
• Establish explicit permission for respectful disagreement
• Recognize and reward those who raise difficult issues constructively
• Demonstrate that changed minds based on evidence are valued, not punished
• Address interpersonal conflicts quickly while encouraging intellectual debate

This combination—high psychological safety with high standards—creates the ideal environment for productive intensity to flourish while preventing true toxicity.

Creating Productive Conflict Norms

Establish explicit norms around how productive conflict should occur:

• Schedule dedicated forums for constructive criticism (design reviews, retrospectives)
• Set ground rules that distinguish acceptable intensity from personal attacks
• Create cooling-off mechanisms when discussions become unproductive
• Train teams in giving direct feedback focused on outcomes
• Model how to passionately disagree while maintaining respect

These structures channel intensity productively while providing guardrails that prevent damaging behaviors. They make intensity expected and valuable rather than problematic.

Separating Standards from Styles

Recognize that people with high standards often express them through different communication styles. Some may be blunt and direct. Others may ask pointed questions. Still others may quietly demonstrate through their work.

Focus on maintaining consistent standards while allowing for stylistic differences:

• Evaluate ideas based on merit rather than delivery style
• Create multiple channels for raising concerns (verbal, written, public, private)
• Avoid tone policing that silences passionate advocacy
• Provide communication coaching for those whose style creates barriers
• Distinguish between uncomfortable communication and actual disrespect

This approach prevents dismissing valuable perspectives simply because they’re delivered intensely while still addressing genuinely disrespectful behavior.

How Do You Handle the Downsides of Diva Energy?

While productive intensity brings tremendous value, it also creates challenges that require active management. Addressing these challenges head-on prevents diva energy from becoming genuinely toxic.

Managing Communication Friction

Intense team members often create communication friction—moments where their directness or passion makes interactions difficult. Address this proactively:

• Provide direct feedback about specific communication approaches that create unnecessary resistance
• Pair communication coaching with continued affirmation of their valuable standards
• Create explicit agreements about communication boundaries
• Normalize “translation” when intensity creates misunderstandings
• Recognize and reward improvements in communication approach

This balanced approach maintains the value of their intensity while reducing its unproductive side effects. It focuses on enhancing effectiveness rather than suppressing passion.

Preventing Burnout Cycles

Intensely passionate people often risk burnout—working unsustainable hours or taking on too much responsibility. Protect these valuable team members through:

• Regular check-ins about workload and sustainability
• Explicit permission and encouragement to take breaks
• Creating accountability partnerships for work-life boundaries
• Recognizing and rewarding sustainable intensity over heroics
• Building redundancy so no single person becomes a bottleneck

These practices help channel intensity productively over the long term rather than letting it flame out through unsustainable patterns. They transform intensity from a sprint into a sustainable pace.

Managing Team Dynamics

Intense team members sometimes create challenging group dynamics if others feel intimidated or overshadowed. Address this by:

• Creating structured opportunities for all voices to contribute
• Explicitly valuing different types of contributions
• Coaching less assertive team members to advocate effectively
• Balancing recognition between those who speak up and those who quietly deliver
• Facilitating constructive follow-ups after intense discussions

These approaches create balanced teams where intensity drives excellence without dominating all interactions or silencing important perspectives.

Building a Culture Where Excellence Thrives

Startups need founders and teams who care deeply—sometimes unreasonably—about quality, execution, and impact. The passion that others might label “difficult” or “diva-like” often provides exactly the intensity needed to build something exceptional from nothing.

The key distinction isn’t between easy and difficult personalities but between productive intensity and destructive toxicity. Toxic employees undermine trust and psychological safety. Productively intense “divas” create temporary discomfort that ultimately elevates standards and outcomes.

As a founder, embracing your role as the “first diva” sets the tone for your entire organization. When you demonstrate that caring deeply is valued—even when it creates tension—you attract others with similar commitment. When you maintain high standards despite the discomfort of conflict, you build a culture where excellence becomes non-negotiable.

This culture of aligned obsession won’t always feel comfortable. It will challenge people. It will create friction. But it will also produce the exceptional results that startups require to succeed. In environments where everyone shares this obsession with excellence, teams accomplish more while experiencing less burnout than in cultures of mismatched intensity.

The startup journey demands exceptional effort and outcomes. Build a team of people who refuse to accept mediocrity—even when their intensity occasionally makes things uncomfortable. Your company’s success depends on it.