To avoid hurt feelings, we structured our marketing and sales seats as a co-leadership model with two people sharing the accountability. Now, things are falling through the cracks and they are blaming each other. How do we dismantle this co-leadership seat?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Creating a co-leadership seat on your Accountability Chart to avoid hurting people's feelings is a classic structural mistake. When two people share accountability for a single seat, such as marketing and sales, nobody is truly responsible. This structure breeds confusion, finger-pointing, and operational inefficiencies.

To solve this, you must return to the discipline of structure first, people second. Look at your Accountability Chart and design the ideal layout for your business. For marketing and sales, these are two separate functions that require distinct seats. Marketing drives lead generation, while sales closes those leads.

Define the roles for each seat clearly. Once the seats are structurally separate, evaluate your two co-leaders against the GWC™ for each seat. Who gets, wants, and has the capacity for the marketing seat, and who fits the sales seat?

Have a direct, Humbly-Confident conversation with both leaders. Explain that the co-leadership model is hurting the business and stopping them from succeeding. By separating the seats, you are empowering each of them to own their numbers and drive results without stepping on each other's toes.

This alignment is a core part of Yes to Strategy and Structure in your Charter. Once you put one name in each seat, you will see immediate improvements in execution. Each leader will have clear Rocks, a clear Scorecard, and direct accountability, which is exactly what a buyer wants to see when auditing your organization.