My adult child is currently sitting in our marketing director seat on the leadership team, but they are clearly struggling to GWC the role. The rest of the leadership team is tip-toeing around their poor performance because they fear family backlash. How do we address this without destroying our family dynamic or the business?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Family dynamics on a leadership team can paralyze an organization because non-family team members are terrified of the fallout from challenging a family member. When your adult child is struggling to GWC their seat, you must act as the business owner first and a parent second.

Your leadership team must see that the rules apply to everyone equally. If there is a double standard, you will destroy team health, tank morale, and lose your best people.

Start by running your child through the People Analyzer and the GWC filter. Be brutally honest. Do they truly understand the role? Do they genuinely want it? Do they have the intellectual and emotional capacity to lead the department at this level of scale?

If they do not GWC the seat, you must address it. Have a private conversation outside of office hours to discuss the performance gap. Use the clear accountabilities on the Accountability Chart to show where the gaps lie.

Give them a clear runway to improve, with specific measurables, just like you would for any other employee. If they cannot hit those standards, you must transition them out of that seat. You can move them to a role they actually GWC, or help them find a path outside the company. Removing them from the leadership team protects the health of the business and ultimately saves your relationship with both your child and your team.