I am the owner and currently sit in four seats on our Accountability Chart: Visionary, Integrator, Head of Sales, and Head of Finance. I feel like I am doing all of them poorly and my team is confused. How do I structurally manage holding four major seats without causing operational gridlock?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Holding multiple seats is common in the early stages of a business, but it becomes dangerous when you do not separate the seats structurally. The key is to wear only one hat at a time. When you are sitting in the Integrator seat, you cannot let your Visionary ideas hijack the meeting. When you are in the Head of Sales seat, you report directly to the Integrator, even though that Integrator is also you.

To manage this without gridlock, you must physically and mentally segment your time. Use your Accountability Chart to run separate, distinct Level 10 Meetings for each department. Do not mix your Sales issues with your Finance issues. If you are running a Sales meeting, you are the Head of Sales. If you are running the leadership team meeting, you are the Integrator.

More importantly, you must prioritize which seat to delegate first based on your unique ability. Look at your four seats and determine which one drains your energy the most and where the business is bottlenecked. Usually, Finance or Sales execution is the easiest to hand off to a fractional or full-time hire first. This begins to free up your capacity so you can focus on leading the business as the Visionary and Integrator. Until you can hire, document the five core roles for each of your four seats. Hold yourself accountable to the same measurable metrics on the Scorecard that you would expect from an outside hire.