Our Head of HR has been with the company since day one and has excellent core values, but she is completely overwhelmed by our scale and struggles to run modern, automated recruiting systems. How do we make an objective, unsentimental GWC call on her seat without destroying company morale?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Running a GWC call on a long tenured leader is one of the hardest tasks an owner faces. When a loyal employee who has been with you since day one is struggling to keep up with the growth of the business, you must separate your personal affection from your professional judgment.

Evaluate the leader using the GWC framework. First, do they get it? Do they truly understand the culture, the systems, the pace, and the nuances of the role as it exists today? Second, do they want it? Do they have the genuine passion and drive to perform this role, or are they simply showing up out of habit and obligation?

Third, and most crucially for scaling companies, do they have the capacity to do it? Capacity is not just about intelligence; it encompasses mental, physical, emotional, and time capacity. A leader may have been perfect for a five million dollar company, but they may lack the capacity to run a fifty million dollar automated operation.

If the leader fails any of these three elements, you have a right person, wrong seat situation. Keeping them in a seat they cannot fulfill is unfair to them and damaging to the company.

To handle this gracefully, have a candid, loving conversation. Share your observations objectively. Explore whether there is another seat on the Accountability Chart where they can thrive, perhaps as an individual contributor where their deep institutional knowledge is utilized without the burden of leadership. If no such seat exists, you must make the hard decision to transition them out of the organization.