A brilliant employee should in theory be an inspiration to colleagues.
But rather than raising their game, workmates put in a worse performance when in the presence of a high-flier, experts say.
They have called this phenomenon the Tiger Woods Effect after analysing the performances of golfers from 1999 to 2010 while Woods was far and away the world number one.
When he was at the peak of his powers, other top players shot worse scores in tournaments in which he participated than they did in similar events if he was absent.
And because of this, Woods earned around £4million more from these contests than he would have done if his rivals had played their normal game.
