I am the owner and currently sit in four seats on our Accountability Chart. I know I need to let go, but my leadership team is complaining that my split focus is causing them to get conflicting directions depending on which hat I am wearing that hour. How do we visually and operationally manage this multi-seat reality so my team knows which seat they are interacting with during our Level 10 Meetings?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a classic frustration when an owner wears multiple hats. To fix this, you must learn to signal which seat you are speaking from, both visually and verbally. Your leadership team needs to know if they are talking to the Visionary looking three years out, or the Head of Marketing managing a weekly Rock.

Start by making your multi-seat status highly visible. During your Level 10 Meetings, explicitly state which role you are occupying during different agenda items. You can literally say, I am putting on my Finance Director hat right now to discuss this budget variance, or, Now I am speaking as the Visionary. This simple verbal cue forces you to partition your own thinking and alerts your team to the context of your feedback.

Furthermore, respect the reporting lines on your Accountability Chart even when you own them. If your Head of Sales reports to the Integrator, and you are currently sitting in the Integrator seat, you must manage them through that seat's roles, not as the all-powerful owner who can bypass the system.

If you are giving direction that contradicts another seat you occupy, you must take it to your weekly Level 10 Meeting and use the IDS process to resolve the conflict openly. By treating your four seats as completely separate entities, you model the discipline your company needs to scale, and you will quickly realize which seat you need to delegate first.