One of our core leadership team members disagrees with our strategic direction and has started venting their frustrations to middle managers. They are highly capable in their seat, but this behavior is fracturing our organization. How do we handle a leader who is failing to maintain a unified front?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A leadership team must present a completely unified front to the rest of the company. Disagreements and debates should happen behind closed doors during your quarterly offsites and weekly Level 10 Meetings™. Once a decision is made, however, every member of the leadership team must support it actively. When a leader vents their frustrations to middle managers, they are creating factions and destroying organizational trust.

You must address this behavior immediately. This is a core values issue, specifically around trust, respect, and teamwork. Schedule a one-on-one meeting with this leader and address the behavior directly. Use specific examples of what was said and explain the damaging impact it has on the team and company culture.

Run them through the GWC™ tool. Do they get, want, and have the capacity to be a mature executive? A major part of the capacity of a leadership seat is the emotional intelligence to support decisions you did not personally vote for.

Make it clear that they have two choices. They can either fully commit to the leadership team's decisions and champion them to the rest of the company, or they can leave the seat. There is no middle ground. If they refuse to stop undermining the team, you must transition them out of the organization, regardless of how capable they are at their functional job. A high-performing toxic leader will always cost you more in lost team cohesion than they produce in individual output.