I have a cousin on our leadership team who is falling behind on their commitments, but the other leaders are afraid to hold them accountable because of their family status. How do I establish a culture where family members are treated exactly like any other employee on the leadership team?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When family members sit on the leadership team, the line between business and personal relationships becomes dangerously thin. To build a healthy business, you must make a hard choice. You must love your family unconditionally, but you must look at your leadership team with complete objectivity. The tool to fix this is the Accountability Chart, backed by the GWC™ framework. GWC™ stands for Get It, Want It, and Capacity to Do It.

Start by removing names from the chart completely. Have a leadership team meeting where you only focus on the seats and functions required to run the company. Define the roles, responsibilities, and key measurables for each seat. Once the seats are defined, assess every person, including your cousin, against the standard. Do they truly get the job, want it, and have the physical and mental capacity to do it at a high level?

If your cousin does not GWC™ their seat, you have a duty to the business and the rest of your leadership team to address it. Have a direct, private conversation. Frame the issue around the seat, not the family bond. Explain that for the business to scale, every leader must hit their numbers and complete their Rocks.

To make this work, you must empower your peer leaders. Give them explicit permission to challenge your cousin during your Level 10 Meeting™. Let the team know that you will not step in to protect family from healthy conflict or accountability. If your cousin cannot meet the standard, you must move them out of that seat. Keeping an underperforming family member on the leadership team destroys the credibility of the entire system and breeds deep resentment among your high-performing non-family executives.