Our Head of Sales is struggling to meet her targets and has become highly defensive during our Level 10 Meetings™, destroying the trust of the rest of the leadership team. How do we use the Trust Equation to address this issue before making an RPRS call?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Before you make a Right Person, Right Seat call, you must diagnose the root cause of the behavior. Charles H. Green's Trust Equation evaluates trust based on credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation. When a leader becomes defensive, their self-orientation skyrockets because they feel threatened, which instantly destroys trust on the leadership team.

To resolve this, you must have a vulnerable, one-on-one conversation. Start by lowering her defensiveness. Acknowledge her past contributions and explain that your goal is to help her succeed, not to attack her. This increases intimacy. Next, look at credibility and reliability. Is she failing because of a lack of skills, or is she overwhelmed by the capacity requirements of the scaling Sales seat?

Use the GWC™ tool to evaluate her objectively. If she passes core values but struggles with capacity, she may need a different seat on the Accountability Chart. By using the Trust Equation to rebuild open communication, you can determine if she can be coached back to high performance or if you need to transition her out of the seat with transparency and respect.