Knowing Who’s Struggling Is Easy. Deciding What to Do Next Isn’t.

If you’ve owned a business for more than 5 minutes, you’ve done the math: If I disappeared for a week, who would keep things running… and who absolutely could not be left alone with decisions?

When you’re tired, carrying too much, and trying to move the business forward, your brain looks for patterns to explain why some people move the business forward while others hold it back. That’s why leaders leverage evaluation tools. Not to label people, but to bring order to complexity. For this conversation, we’ll use one of the most common frameworks business owners already recognize: A/B/C/D.

The A/B/C/D framework is a simple performance evaluation tool used to assess how reliably someone is meeting expectations in their role. A players consistently meet or exceed expectations with little oversight. B players meet expectations but may need occasional guidance or development. C players struggle to meet expectations without frequent support. D players consistently miss expectations or create risk for the business. The framework helps leaders identify where support, development, or change is needed.

One important clarification before we go further: I don’t believe in reducing people to letters, numbers, or ratings. Humans are more complex than that. I use this framework for one reason only: to give overwhelmed leaders a starting point when decision fatigue stalls momentum.

Over the course of my career, from starting work at 16 to leading a business, I’ve experienced every one of these roles from both sides of the table. I have seen how fluid performance truly is. People grow, stall, re-engage, and evolve. The real breakdown happens when labels replace curiosity, coaching, or leadership structure.

What Most Leaders Miss

Labels of any kind are not permanent identities. They are snapshots in time, shaped as much by expectations and environment as by skill or effort.

If seen as the beginning of the conversation, this framework leads to better decisions and stronger teams. If seen only as a conclusion, inevitably the hiring/firing hamster wheel never stops.

Let's break down what these labels actually mean:

• A players are well aligned, trusted, and growing (not perfect and not always a fit for leadership roles) 
• B players are capable, steady, and usually underdeveloped.
• C players are misaligned, unclear, or unsupported.
• D players are disconnected, resistant, or in the wrong role.

An important consideration during evaluation is sometimes the kindest, healthiest, strategic move is to let someone go. I’ve seen what happens when leaders keep the wrong people around too long. Morale erodes, high performers disengage, and the damage doesn’t magically disappear once the decision is finally made. Culture remembers.

However, I have witnessed environments in which “C” or even “D” players grow dramatically when they’re given structure, accountability, and real ownership. With clarity and support, they don’t just improve. They become deeply loyal, invested, long-term contributors.

Labels feel efficient when everything is moving fast. But strong leadership requires slowing down enough to see what’s actually happening. Evaluating without bias or rigid labels is how leaders build trust, improve performance, and stop making reactive decisions they later regret.

If you’re going to use the ABCD framework as a starting point, the real work is knowing what to do with what you observe.

How Strong Leaders Drive Forward Motion

Evaluate outcomes, not effort
Ask: Did the work move the business forward in a measurable way?
Effort helps you diagnose the cause of the result, but outcomes determine what leaders must respond to with decisions.

A team member can be:

• High effort + poor outcome  Coach, clarify, train, or fix the system.
  

• Low effort + acceptable outcome  Address standards, ownership, or sustainability.
  

• High effort + strong outcome  Develop and reward.
  

• Low effort + poor outcome Escalate expectations or make a harder call.
  

If leaders focus solely on effort, nothing changes. If leaders ignore effort, they lose good people.

Separate skill gaps from will gaps
Skill gaps require training, clarity, or practice.
Will gaps require expectations, accountability, or hard conversations.
Treating one like the other is where leaders lose trust with their team.

Pressure-test your leadership before concluding anything
Ask: Have I clearly defined success, provided the tools, and created the conditions for success and ownership?
If the answer is no, which is much harder to admit, the data is incomplete.

Turning C Players Into B Players 

They usually care. They usually show up. And they’re usually capable of more than they’re producing. What’s missing isn’t talent, it’s clarity, structure, or confidence.

Strong leaders don’t “motivate” C players. They remove ambiguity.

That looks like:

• Clear outcomes instead of vague expectations
  
  
• Feedback tied to business impact, not personality
  
  
• Support that’s time-bound and measurable
  
  

If performance improves when expectations get sharper, you didn’t have a people problem, you had a leadership gap. And that’s fixable. This shift isn’t about micromanaging, it’s about coaching.

When and How D Players Can Grow (And When They Can’t)

This is where leaders get stuck.

Some D players are misaligned, undertrained, or placed into chaos too early. In the right environment, with the right standards, they can stabilize and grow.

Others aren’t.

Growth requires two things:

• The leader providing structure, direction, and accountability
  
  
• The employee demonstrating ownership and willingness to adjust
  
  

When one of those is missing, progress stalls and keeping them around too long causes real damage. To morale. To trust. To your top performers. To the individual’s self esteem.

Compassion isn’t keeping people in roles they can’t succeed in. It’s making tough decisions before the cost becomes permanent.

"Strong leaders hold two truths at the same time: people are capable of growth and businesses require standards to be successful."

Leah Omar

Your Role in Developing A and B Players

A and B players don’t stay strong by accident.

They grow because leaders:

• Set standards and enforce them consistently
• Give feedback early not just during performance reviews
• Create space for ownership
  
  

High performers don’t want to be rescued or ignored. They want to be trusted, challenged, and protected from chaos.

If your A players are burning out or disengaging, it’s rarely about motivation.
It’s usually about carrying too much for too long.

The Real Goal

Leadership is about building an environment where the right people can thrive. The goal here isn’t a team that magically performs without leadership. The real, sustainable goal is a team that doesn’t require your constant emotional energy to function.

A team where performance isn’t managed through frustration, hovering, or repeated “we’ve talked about this” conversations. A team where expectations are clear enough that most corrections happen before they become problems and often without you being the first one to notice.

In healthy environments, growth doesn’t come from micromanagement or fear. It comes from clarity. From people knowing what success looks like, how their role contributes, and where the line is between learning and not meeting the standard.

Strong leaders...

• Don’t remove themselves from performance loops; they design it to drive the business forward, and their people along with it.
• They solve confusion with structure and clear expectations.
• They replace assumptions with conversations. 
• They coach early, address patterns instead of one-off incidents, and don’t wait until resentment forces a hard decision.

With this powerful shift, the following things happen:

• C players either rise because they finally understand what’s expected of them or they self-select out because the gap is now visible.
• B players stabilize and gain confidence.
• A players stop carrying the emotional weight of everyone else’s performance.

If you’re feeling conflicted as you read this, that is a great sign that you are ready to embrace the duality of leadership.

Trying to be fair and decisive, supportive and firm, human and profitable, often without a clear framework to hold all of that at once.

You don’t have to lower standards to be compassionate.
You don’t have to micromanage to be involved.
And you don’t have to keep guessing what to do next when performance feels uneven.

Leadership feels lighter when expectations are clear, feedback is timely, and growth is treated as a process, not a personality trait.

If this post helped you see your team (and yourself) a little more clearly, that’s your signal. You don’t need a complete overhaul. You need a simple structure that supports better decisions without stripping away your values, ambition, or your instincts.

That’s exactly what I help business owners build inside From Boss to Leader: a grounded path out of decision fatigue and into confident, sustainable leadership — one step at a time.

When you're ready, learn more here.