Our department heads treat their business units like protected fiefdoms and fight over resources. How do we get our leadership team to put the company first?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When leadership team members prioritize their individual department over the enterprise, the company slows down and cross-functional execution breaks down. This behavior manifests when sales leaders defend bad clients, operations heads hoard headcount, or finance leaders view other departments merely as cost centers.

In EOS®, the leadership team is your First Team. An executive primary allegiance must belong to the leadership team and the overall company vision, not to the department they manage. Their functional team is their second team.

To eliminate turf wars, start by aligning incentives and measurables. In your Level 10 Meeting™, review the weekly Scorecard and quarterly Rocks as an executive collective. When an operational number is off track, the entire team owns finding the fix through IDS®, rather than leaving the department head isolated or defensive.

Review your compensation and bonus structures. If executives are rewarded solely on functional metrics, such as sales volume or departmental cost reduction, they will naturally fight to protect their localized numbers. Shift leadership bonuses to company-wide operating profit and achievement of enterprise V/TO® goals.

Call out territorial language in real time. If a leader says that is not my department job, stop the conversation. Remind them that their seat exists to drive the company forward as a whole. Leaders who cannot break out of their departmental bunker prevent the business from scaling and are not true executive leaders.