My cousin is our marketing director and sits on our leadership team, but they consistently miss their weekly scorecard metrics and fail their Rocks. The other executives are afraid to call them out because of our family relationship. How do I address this performance gap without causing family drama or alienating my team?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Having a family member on the leadership team who fails to perform is a toxic dynamic that will quickly destroy trust among your other executives. If your team sees that family members are held to a lower standard of accountability, they will stop trying, and your culture will suffer.

You must separate the family relationship from the business relationship. In the office, your cousin is simply the marketing director who occupies a seat on the Accountability Chart.

Start by using the GWC™ tool. Does your cousin truly get, want, and have the capacity for the marketing seat? If they do, but they are failing to hit their scorecard metrics and Rocks, you must manage them exactly as you would any other employee. Use your Level 10 Meetings™ to address the red metrics.

If the performance does not improve, enter a formal performance correction process. Issue clear, thirty-day objectives. If they still cannot meet the expectations of the seat, you must remove them from that role. You can look for another seat in the organization where they actually GWC™ the position, but they cannot remain on the leadership team.

Your non-family executives are watching how you handle this. Taking decisive action proves that accountability applies to everyone and protects the enterprise value of your company.