We hired two external executives into our tight-knit founding leadership team, and the existing leaders treat them like outsiders, withholding trust and information. How do we break down this clique and build true baseline vulnerability?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Founding teams often operate on unspoken shorthand and shared history. When you inject professional executives from the outside, the old guard frequently retreats into an informal clique. They withhold context, debate decisions offline, and view outside perspectives as threats rather than upgrades. This behavior stifles operational scale and repels high-tier talent.

Start by shifting your team from informal tribal knowledge to transparent operational disciplines. Use your weekly Level 10 Meeting and quarterly offsites to reset the playing field. In EOS, the team rallies around the Accountability Chart, the V/TO, and clear Scorecard measurables, not legacy tenure or personal loyalties.

Force radical transparency by dismantling private side channels. If decisions are being made in hallway chats between legacy leaders, those decisions must be ruled invalid until vetted openly through IDS. Call out passive exclusion immediately when you observe it.

Next, run structured exercises that force professional vulnerability. Have each leader share their greatest strengths, weaknesses, and functional priorities at your next quarterly session. Require legacy leaders and new hires to co-own cross-functional Rocks. Trust accelerates when executives realize their shared survival depends on collective output rather than historical camaraderie.

Make it clear to your founding leaders that protecting the past will forfeit the future. If a legacy executive refuses to grant baseline trust to a capable peer, they are prioritizing personal comfort over company health, which means they are in the wrong seat.