My brother is our head of sales and sits on the leadership team, but he is consistently failing to hit his metrics and the rest of the team is afraid to call him out because of our last name. How do I address family underperformance on the leadership team without ruining our Thanksgiving dinner?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When family is on the leadership team, you must establish one cardinal rule: the Accountability Chart does not care about your DNA. Your brother must be evaluated with the exact same standard as any non-family executive.

First, look at the Accountability Chart seat he occupies. Does he truly GWC™ it? Does he get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it? If he does not, his presence on the leadership team is creating a toxic double standard. Remember that cracks at the leadership level appear as massive canyons to the rest of the organization. If frontline employees see him underperforming with zero consequences, your culture of accountability is dead.

Second, solve this in your next Level 10 Meeting™ or quarterly offsite. Do not protect him in discussions. You must invite the rest of the leadership team to run the IDS® process on his sales metrics. If the team remains silent, call it out directly. Let them know that protecting your brother is actually hurting the company and putting his seat at risk.

If he cannot hit his metrics after receiving clear, objective feedback, you must make the hard choice to transition him out of that seat. You can love your family, but you must protect the health of your business. Moving him to a role that fits his true capabilities is the only way to build a functional, exit-ready company.