About the Hosts:
Steve Mellor and Lee Povey are seasoned high-performance coaches with decades of experience leading elite athletes, startup founders, and executive teams. As co-hosts of The Founders Catalyst, they dig into the real challenges of leadership, company culture, and performance, creating space for candid, reflective, and often uncomfortable conversations.

Episode Summary:
In this episode, Steve and Lee get real about one of the most overlooked and emotionally charged responsibilities of founders and leaders: hiring and firing. Why do so many leaders avoid tough conversations? What makes firing feel so personal, and why shouldn't it be?

Drawing from their years as elite coaches and founders themselves, they explore the often blurry boundaries between friendship and leadership, and how avoiding clarity in your hiring and firing practices can quietly sabotage your culture and company performance. This is a conversation about respect, candor, performance standards, and why you should never clean up the house before hiring someone to clean it.

Key Takeaways:

• Why “being liked” sabotages good hiring decisions
• The myth of the company “family”—and why thinking like a team wins
• What most leaders get wrong about performance reviews
• How to set expectations and communicate standards from day one
• Emotional traps in the hiring/firing cycle
• The case for trial periods, performance metrics, and candid conversations
• Real stories from Lee and Steve on letting go of co-founders and culture misfits
• How to know when it’s time to part ways—and do it with integrity
• Why most leaders keep poor performers 6–12 months too long

Resources Mentioned:

• Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy Model
• EO (Entrepreneur Organization) & EOA (Entrepreneur Accelerator)
• Daniel Kahneman’s hiring bias research

Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. Stay tuned for more insights and discussions to help you thrive in both your personal and professional life.

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