A leader's loyalty to struggling team members can feel good but tanks performance. Unlike the military, business needs clear metrics for when to cut underperformers loose. Getting the right people in the right roles matters more than carrying anyone.
Chapters
Lots of different roles and having the right people on your team is even more critical to success. But what's the shadow side of loyalty? What's, what's the dark side of this? Well, it may come up in hiring and firing. This is one of the most important things we do as leaders. The decisions we make about the people on our teams is critical to our success. And for us as high performers, it can be really comfortable to shoulder the load. So, and if you think about this in military terms, if there's someone on the team who is underperforming, a lot of times we'll just put the team on our back and we'll carry that person along with us and, and that actually makes us feel good about ourselves and that we're doing the right thing, we're helping our teammates. But again, here's a difference in business and combat. Like, there has to be a line, there has to be some kind of rubric when we cut an underperformer, right? Especially when we think about a startup because at a startup we're wearing multiple hats, lots of different roles, and having the right people on your team is even more critical to success. So where is that line?