Our mid-sized business requires several leaders to sit in multiple seats on our Accountability Chart due to tight resources. When a measurable on our weekly Scorecard drops, they blame their other seats for taking up all their time. How do we hold someone accountable for their performance when they wear multiple hats?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Wearing multiple hats is common in growing companies, but using one seat as an excuse for failing in another is unacceptable. It destroys accountability and creates friction across your entire leadership team. You must hold people accountable to the seat, not just to the person.

To resolve this, you must treat each seat on your Accountability Chart as a completely independent business function, even if the same name is in multiple boxes. Each seat has distinct roles, Rocks, and weekly Scorecard measurables.

During your weekly Level 10 Meeting, if a scorecard metric is off-track, the leader cannot simply say they were too busy with their other seat. They must own the failure of that specific seat. The Integrator must step in and IDS the issue. The real problem is usually a capacity constraint.

Use the IDS process to identify which seat is suffering and why. If a leader is spending eighty percent of their time in operations, their sales seat will inevitably slip. This is your cue that the business has outgrown its current structure. You must either automate the tasks, delegate lower-value work, or prepare to hire a dedicated resource to take over one of those seats. Until you can split the seats, the leader must work with the Integrator to prioritize their weekly activities, ensuring they do not drop the ball on critical accountabilities.