Our Operations Director refuses to build out middle management seats on the Accountability Chart because he insists he can handle all twelve of his field supervisors directly. He is working eighty hours a week and starting to burn out. How do we force him to restructure his department and delegate?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

An eighty-hour work week is not a badge of honor; it is a structural failure. In EOS®, we follow a strict span of control guideline: no leader should have more than seven direct reports. When an Operations Director has twelve direct reports, they cannot possibly lead, manage, and hold them accountable effectively. The weekly Level 10 Meetings™ become chaotic, and strategic priorities get buried under daily fires.

You must force him to restructure by taking the names off the board and looking at the structure first. Help him see that his current seat is unsustainable and is actively bottlenecking the company's growth.

Create a layer of middle management seats below him, such as Regional Operations Managers or Team Leads. Move the twelve field supervisors so they report directly to these new management seats. This reduces his direct reports to a manageable number, typically three to five.

Next, run GWC™ on your existing team to find the right people to step into these new management seats. If your Operations Director resists this change, it is often because he fails the Capacity portion of GWC™ for his own seat, specifically the ability to delegate. Remind him that his job is to lead and manage, not to do everything himself.