Eureka Case 25 min Undergrad

The Brilliant Derailer

You are Priya Nandakumar, an executive coach retained by a scale-up. Your credibility and a fraying leadership team depend on how you handle one derailing star.

You have been engaged to coach the leadership team of a fast-growing scale-up. The Chief Product Officer, Marcus, is visionary and adored by the CEO, but in the last quarter three senior product leaders have resigned, all citing his volatility: warmth one week, public cutting criticism the next. In your group sessions Marcus dominates airtime, deflects feedback with charm, and subtly recruits allies against those who challenge him. He does not see a problem; the CEO half-believes the departures are just "people who couldn't keep up."

You decide how to intervene with a high-performing executive whose behavior is fracturing his team.

The decision

How do you intervene with Marcus and the leadership team?

  • A - Confront him in the group
  • B - Report to the CEO
  • C - Work the dynamics

The rest of the case is locked

The data, the calculations, the decision itself and what happens next open with your institution's access code.

Have an access code?

No code yet?

Instructors can request access for a course. Tell us who you are and which course it is for, and we will send your institution a code.

Run it live in class: every student decides and justifies, and the whole class sees how it splits. How Eureka Case works →