Over the years our leadership team has ballooned to nine people, turning our weekly Level 10 Meeting into an unwieldy presentation session where nothing gets resolved. How do we restructure and downsize the leadership team back to a core group without causing a corporate mutiny?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A leadership team with nine members is not a leadership team. It is a committee. When groups exceed seven people, genuine vulnerability vanishes, individual accountability drops, and meetings inevitably devolve into scripted status updates rather than vigorous, problem-solving discussions.

To fix this without causing chaos, reset the entire conversation around structural design rather than personal status. Use the EOS principle of structure first, people second. Take your leadership team offsite and pull up a blank Accountability Chart. Do not write anyone's name down. Ask: If we were designing this business from scratch today to get us to our three-year vision, what are the three to seven major functional seats required to run it?

Typically, that core structure consists of a Visionary, an Integrator, Sales and Marketing, Operations, and Finance. Every other seat in your company belongs under one of those major functions. When the entire group agrees on that foundational architecture, it becomes obvious that nine people cannot sit at the top level.

Once the structure is locked, communicate the shift to the broader management group. Explain that being on the leadership team is not a badge of worth, a reward for tenure, or an indication of rank. It is simply a specific function responsible for enterprise-wide coordination and executing the V/TO. Leaders who transition out of the executive Level 10 Meeting will still run their departmental Level 10 Meetings, own critical Rocks, and lead their teams. Frame the change as freeing them from broad corporate administration so they can focus on operational mastery in their departments.