I have a loyal executive who has been with me since day one and embodies all our core values, but they simply do not have the capability to lead their department as we scale toward an exit. How do we navigate the tension between personal loyalty and organizational capability on the leadership team without sending a message that we do not care about our people?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is one of the hardest challenges an owner will face, but you must remember that you cannot scale a business based on historical loyalty alone. To build a healthy, cohesive, and functional leadership team, you must evaluate every seat using the Right People, Right Seat framework. If a legacy executive is the right person because they live your core values, but they are in the wrong seat because they do not have the capability to scale, you are hurting both the company and the individual.

When preparing for an exit or managing rapid growth, capability gaps become glaring liabilities. Your leadership team sets the tone for the entire organization, and keeping someone in a seat they cannot GWC is a disservice to their team.

To resolve this dynamic with respect and clarity, take these steps:
- Conduct a transparent GWC evaluation to objectively assess if they have the capacity to lead the department at our target scale.
- Have an honest, loving conversation about their ceiling, emphasizing that their value to the company is not tied to a title they are struggling to maintain.
- Explore other critical seats in the organization where their deep institutional knowledge and core value alignment can shine without bottlenecking operational growth.
- Transition them gracefully to a role where they can succeed, which preserves their dignity and protects the business.

Sustaining the company's growth requires prioritizing the Accountability Chart over personal relationships. True loyalty to your people means putting them in positions where they can win, not leaving them in seats where they are set up to fail.