Our lead digital strategist is a perfect core values fit and has the capability to be our Head of Marketing, but he only wants to work thirty hours a week so he can run his own side business. Can we put a part-time employee into a major leadership team seat on our Accountability Chart, or does this set a dangerous precedent for GWC?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Putting a part-time employee into a major leadership team seat on your Accountability Chart is highly risky, especially as you prepare for a clean exit. Leadership seats require significant capacity to manage people, solve issues, and drive quarterly Rocks.

To evaluate this, you must run the strategist through the GWC™ filter, with a heavy focus on the Capacity component. Capacity is not just about mental capability, it is also about time and emotional bandwidth.

A leadership team member must be fully present to participate in weekly Level 10 Meetings™, quarterly planning sessions, and urgent issue-solving. If this strategist is capped at thirty hours a week and running a side business, he likely lacks the time capacity to lead a department.

Furthermore, having a part-time leader can create resentment among other leadership team members who are putting in forty-plus hours a week. It also limits his availability to support his direct reports when issues arise.

The correct structural move is to keep the Head of Marketing seat vacant or held temporarily by your Integrator, and place the part-time strategist in a specialized, non-leadership seat beneath it, such as Senior Marketing Specialist.

This allows you to leverage his brilliant technical skills without compromising the integrity of your leadership team structure. Protect the capacity standards of your leadership seats to ensure your business remains attractive to prospective buyers.