One of our original department heads is a great person and lives our values, but as we have scaled from thirty to eighty employees, they are clearly drowning and cannot manage their larger team. How do we handle a loyal leader who has hit their ceiling without destroying morale?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is one of the most painful challenges an owner faces. Cracks at the leadership level appear as canyons to the rest of the organization, and keeping a leader in a seat they have outgrown is unfair to them and damaging to the business.

You must address this issue objectively using the GWC tool. Does this person get, want, and have the capacity to do their current job at this new scale? Often, a loyal leader who excelled at managing five people simply lacks the cognitive, emotional, or professional capacity to manage thirty people, run complex budgets, and design scalable processes.

Be honest and direct. Have a vulnerable conversation with them about their current performance. Often, they already know they are drowning and feel immense stress, but they are afraid of losing their job or status.

Look for a way to keep them in a seat where they do GWC. This often means moving them out of the leadership seat and into an individual contributor or specialist role where their deep institutional knowledge can still shine.

If there is no suitable seat on your Accountability Chart that fits their unique abilities, you must make the hard decision to transition them out of the company with dignity and respect. Keeping someone in a seat they cannot fulfill out of pure sentimentality ruins team accountability and holds back your entire organization.