Two of my core leaders had a major personal falling out outside of work, and now their professional relationship has completely deteriorated, affecting their entire departments. How do I rebuild trust on the team when the source of the conflict is deeply personal?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When personal fallouts infect the workplace, you must draw a hard line immediately. Your job is not to act as a therapist, but to protect the health of the organization and ensure the leadership team functions. Start by pulling both leaders into a private room.

Be completely direct. Tell them that while their personal lives are their own, their professional behavior is currently damaging the business and their departments. Use the trust framework to demand a professional commitment. They do not need to be friends, but they must establish a functional, respectful working relationship.

This means they must communicate clearly, support each other's decisions, and collaborate in Level 10 Meetings without passive-aggressive behavior. Set a clear, short timeline for this recovery.

Monitor their interactions closely over the next month. If they cannot put their personal issues aside to run their departments effectively, they are failing to GWC their seats. At that point, you must make a hard decision. If one or both of them cannot maintain professional boundaries, you must remove the individual who is unable to prioritize the company over their personal grievance.

AI never sits in the room. It works before the Level 10 Meeting to prep the data and after the meeting to capture and track what was decided. The 90 minutes stay human: your leadership team, the scorecard, the issues list, and the IDS conversation.