Our regional customer support managers are asking if they can job-share the Director of Customer Support seat on our Accountability Chart because they both want to work part-time. They have excellent chemistry and promise to communicate daily to avoid any dropped balls. Can we put two names in this single leadership seat if they are completely aligned?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The short answer is no. Putting two names in a single seat on your Accountability Chart, especially a leadership seat, is a recipe for operational drag and confusion. In the EOS framework, accountability is singular. When two people are responsible for a seat, nobody is responsible.

If you allow these managers to share the director seat, your team will not know who has the final say on critical decisions. When a client issue escalates or a metric is missed, the two co-leaders will naturally point to each other, even if they have the best intentions. It also slows down decision making because they must constantly consult each other before taking action.

Instead of sharing one seat, you must divide the seat into two distinct, functional seats on your Accountability Chart. Each seat must have its own unique set of five roles and its own specific measurables. For example, you could create a Director of Customer Support East seat and a Director of Customer Support West seat, dividing the responsibility by territory. Or you could have one seat dedicated to Customer Support Operations and another seat dedicated to Customer Experience Training.

Each of these seats must have only one name in it. If these managers want to work part-time, ensure their newly defined seats reflect part-time roles with proportional measurables. If they cannot agree on a clean division of labor, or if the business genuinely needs a single, full-time director to run the department, then you must hire a full-time leader who has the GWC for that single seat. Do not compromise your structure for employee convenience.