We recently promoted our long-time Head of Operations to the Integrator seat to free me up for Visionary work, but the rest of the leadership team still treats her like a peer. They are completely bypassing her and coming directly to me for final approvals on their department issues. How do we reinforce the new Accountability Chart hierarchy?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a common point of friction when promoting an internal leader to the Integrator seat. The leadership team is defaulting to old habits because they are used to treating this person as a peer and coming to you as the ultimate decision maker. To break this pattern, you must actively police the boundaries of the Accountability Chart™. First, you must stop answering their operational questions. Every time a department head approaches you for an approval, a decision, or an opinion on an operational issue, you must ask one question: Have you talked to the Integrator yet? If the answer is no, walk them to her office or forward the email directly to her. Do not provide a backdoor channel. Second, you must publicly validate her authority. In your Level 10 Meetings™ and quarterly sessions, let the team see that she is running the meeting and managing the execution of the business plan. You sit in the Visionary seat, which is peer to peer with no one operational, but the Integrator is the one who manages the leadership team. If you continue to play the hero and solve their problems, you are undermining your new Integrator and keeping your business owner-dependent, which will actively hurt your valuation when you try to exit.