We are preparing for an exit in twenty-four months and have three key leadership seats empty. Our current team is covering them, but they are burning out and our Level 10 Meetings are turning into venting sessions. How do we prioritize which seat to fill first to protect our valuation and sanity?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Preparing for a clean exit in twenty-four months while managing multiple empty leadership seats is a recipe for operational failure. If your leadership team is burning out and your Level 10 Meetings have devolved into venting sessions, your business valuation is actively dropping. Buyers pay a premium for a stable, self-sustaining management team, not an exhausted group of firemen.

To regain control, you must stop trying to fill all three empty seats at once. You do not have the operational capacity or the bandwidth to onboard multiple executives simultaneously. You must prioritize.

Use Keith Cunningham's Thinking Time to analyze your empty seats. Ask yourself: which empty seat is causing the greatest bottleneck to our current revenue and operational efficiency? For most scaling companies preparing for an exit, the priority is either the Integrator seat or the Head of Operations seat. You need a leader who can run the daily business and manage systems, freeing you to focus on strategic transition plans.

Once you identify the critical seat, focus all your hiring resources on it. Use conative screening and the Kolbe Index to ensure your candidates have the natural strengths required for the role.

For the remaining empty seats, simplify their roles on the Accountability Chart. Delegate lower-level tasks to coordinators, and keep the remaining high-level responsibilities clearly assigned as temporary secondary seats on the leadership team. This structured approach protects your team's sanity and shows buyers a clear plan for operational stability.