Our leadership team has grown to nine members as we have promoted department heads, but our meetings have become unproductive debates and we are struggling to make decisions quickly. How do we trim our leadership team down to a healthy size without causing a massive internal revolt?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A leadership team of nine is too large. In EOS®, the rule of thumb is three to seven seats on the leadership team. When you exceed seven, communication breaks down, decision-making stalls, and your meetings devolve into political posturing rather than productive problem-solving.

To fix this, you must rebuild your Accountability Chart from scratch. Forget about the people currently in the seats and focus entirely on the structure the business needs to reach its three-year target. Identify the core functions of your business, typically Sales, Marketing, Operations, Finance, and Integrator.

Once you have defined the healthy structure, you must have transparent, one-on-one conversations with the leaders who will no longer be on the leadership team. Explain that this restructure is about operational efficiency, not a demotion of their value to the company. Frame it around their capacity and focus. Many of your leaders will actually be relieved to step off the leadership team so they can focus on running their specific departments without the burden of high-level strategic planning. Ensure they still have clear direction, and let them know their department's metrics will still be represented on the scorecard.