Our Head of Marketing is a core values match and has worked here for years, but as we scale toward a private equity exit, she cannot seem to transition from doing tactical work to strategic planning. How do we determine if she can actually GWC the evolving leadership seat or if we need to transition her?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a long-term leader who matches your core values cannot scale with the company, you must evaluate them strictly using the GWC™ framework. Getting the job and wanting the job are rarely the issues for loyal employees. The bottleneck is almost always capacity, which includes the mental, physical, and emotional capability to lead a larger, more complex operation. To make an objective determination, take the following steps:
- Evaluate their seat on the Accountability Chart against your future three year picture.
- Assess if they can manage the larger budget, more advanced technology, and higher headcount.
- Look at their performance on quarterly Rocks and scorecard metrics over the last nine months.
If they consistently struggle to hit their numbers or resist upgrading to automated workflows, they lack the capacity for the evolving seat. Do not wait until they burn out or stall your exit readiness. Your job as a leader is to have a direct, loving, and honest conversation. If they lack the capacity to scale, you must find or create a different seat where they can succeed. Keeping a person in a seat they cannot GWC™ is unfair to them and damaging to the company. Move them to a right seat where their institutional knowledge and core values alignment can still drive value without stalling your growth.