Our Chief Marketing Officer has been fantastic at execution, but as we scale from ten million to thirty million, she is clearly drowning in strategic planning and cannot seem to step up. How do we determine if she has reached her ceiling or just needs more support?

To determine if your Chief Marketing Officer has hit her ceiling, you must evaluate her using the GWC framework. This stands for Get It, Want It, and Capacity to Do It. While she clearly gets it and wants it based on her past performance, the capacity element is where scaling leaders fail. Capacity is not just about time. It is about intellectual, physical, and emotional capacity to handle the increased complexity of a larger business. Start by looking at the Accountability Chart. Is she failing at Leadership, Management, and Accountability, also known as LMA? When a company triples in size, a leader must shift from doing the work to leading and managing the people who do the work. If she is still trying to execute tactics herself instead of building a high-performing department, she is bottlenecking your growth. Do not just give her more support or hire coordinators to save her. First, have an open and honest conversation during your same-page meetings. Review her seat on the Accountability Chart and ask if she has the capacity to lead a thirty million dollar marketing engine. If she lacks the conative strength to build systems and manage strategic metrics, she is in the wrong seat. You must move her to a specialist seat where she can thrive, or replace her. Keeping her in a seat she cannot handle out of sentimentality will stall your company and burn her out.

Category: Leadership Team