I am the owner and currently sit in four seats on our Accountability Chart, including VP of Sales and VP of Marketing. My team is confused because when they talk to me, they do not know which hat I am wearing, and they keep bypassing my mid-level managers to get to the "owner." How do I physically and operationally wear these four hats without destroying our reporting lines?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When an owner wears multiple hats on the Accountability Chart, the team often defaults to seeing only one seat: the Boss. This causes team members to bypass standard reporting lines, bring low-level issues directly to you, and undermine the other managers who should be handling those problems. To prevent this, you must run each seat as a separate, distinct role with strict operational boundaries.

First, establish explicit rules of engagement during your meetings. When you are speaking, declare which seat you are speaking from. For example, in a sales-focused discussion, explicitly state that you are speaking as the VP of Sales, not the owner or the Visionary. This forces the team to respond to the role, not your equity.

Second, respect the reporting lines yourself. If a marketing coordinator bypasses their manager to bring an issue to you, you must redirect them back to their direct supervisor on the Accountability Chart. If you answer their question, you train them to keep bypassing the system, which destroys the authority of your leadership team and makes your business impossible to scale or exit.

Finally, use your Level 10 Meetings™ to enforce these boundaries. Keep your issues limited to the scope of the specific seat you are occupying in that meeting. If you are in a leadership team meeting as the VP of Sales, focus only on sales Rocks and metrics. This discipline proves to your team that the structure is real, and it prepares the business for an exit by showing buyers that each seat functions independently of your status as the owner.