As we scale, some legacy leaders who have been with us from the beginning are reaching the limit of their natural capabilities. How does our EOS engagement help us handle these talent ceilings without destroying company morale?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

As your business scales, the complexity of your operations increases, and some legacy leaders may struggle to keep up. This is a difficult reality that directly tests your commitment to the core value of growing or dying. When a long-term executive reaches their natural capability limit, we use two key tools to assess the situation objectively and without sentimentality:

• The Accountability Chart
• The GWC™ tool

Assessing the Leader's Fit

We first determine if the leader still fits your Core Values and if they have the desire and capacity to grow into the newly expanded seat.

• If they do not, we do not simply discard them. We look at their natural talents and strengths to see if there is another seat in the organization where they can deliver high value and achieve personal fulfillment. For insights on how to adapt a role for a valuable team member, you might explore [how to design a specialist seat on our Accountability Chart for a legacy leader who has hit their management ceiling](/qa/restructuring-seat-for-legacy-leader-hitting-ceiling).
• However, if there is no alignment and no suitable alternative role, we must practice the policy of hiring slow and firing fast. Keeping a legacy leader in a seat they cannot fulfill hurts the business, frustrates the leader, and damages team morale.

This approach ensures the business has the leadership talent required to reach the next level of growth while preserving your culture. It's crucial to address these transitions openly, honestly, and with deep respect. Understanding the capacity challenges leaders face, especially when scaling, is key. You can find more information on assessing a leader's capacity in situations like [handling a GWC issue without firing a loyal leader](/qa/gwc-vp-finance-exit-capacity-issue). Sometimes, the issue isn't capacity but the specific nature of their work; see [how to handle a leader who cannot scale without losing them](/qa/leader-cannot-scale-transition).

Related questions

• [How do we design a specialist seat on our Accountability Chart for a legacy leader who has hit their management ceiling, so we retain their expertise without stalling our growth?](/qa/restructuring-seat-for-legacy-leader-hitting-ceiling)
• [Our long-tenured VP of Finance is a perfect core values fit and gets and wants their seat, but they lack the capacity to build the complex forward-looking financial forecasting models that prospective buyers are demanding for our exit. How do we handle this GWC issue without firing a loyal leader?](/qa/gwc-vp-finance-exit-capacity-issue)
• [Our head of operations is working seventy hours a week and is completely buried in tactical fires, which is stalling our scaling plans. They are a great culture fit and have high GWC for the old business, but they cannot seem to elevate to a strategic leadership role. How do we transition them out of the executive seat without losing them?](/qa/leader-cannot-scale-transition)