Our Director of Marketing passes GWC with flying colors and is hitting all her department metrics, but she is highly defensive during our leadership team meetings and frequently displays behavior that borderlines on violating our core value of open and honest communication. How do we address this core values issue without disrupting her high-performing department?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

High performance is never an excuse for toxic or defensive behavior. If you tolerate a core values violation on your leadership team because someone is hitting their numbers, you are actively undermining your company culture and paying a massive tax in team trust.

You must address this issue directly using the People Analyzer tool. Run her through the assessment to show her exactly where she is falling below the bar on your core values. Do not rely on vague complaints. Bring concrete, specific examples of her defensive behavior from your recent Level 10 Meetings and show how it violates the standard of open and honest communication.

During this conversation, adopt an other-focused mindset, as outlined in the Trusted Advisor Fieldbook. Ask her how she is feeling about the team dynamics and listen to her perspective. Sometimes, defensiveness is a symptom of feeling unsupported or overwhelmed, but she must understand that her reaction is unacceptable.

Give her a clear, actionable expectation for improvement and monitor her behavior over the next thirty days. If she does not make a consistent, visible effort to align with your core values, you must be prepared to make the tough Right Person, Wrong Seat call, even if her department metrics are outstanding. The long-term health of your leadership team and the enterprise value of your company are far more important than any single individual.