The Person Nobody Ever Told The Truth

Leaders Leading Leaders · Aug 28, 2026 · 15m

Dealing with an underperforming employee is hard — but the real accountability problem on your team isn't the person. It's the workaround everybody built around them.Every team has one: the person nobody sends the important work to. Nobody voted on it. Somebody just stopped putting the big accounts in that queue, somebody started copying a second name on the email, and somebody built a checklist that exists for exactly one reason. And it works — which is exactly why it never gets fixed.Your best people are paying for it. They absorbed that work without being asked and without more money, and…