Two of our leadership team members are locked in a passive-aggressive power struggle over who has final say on cross-departmental workflows, and it is stalling our entire operation. How do we break this stalemate and force them to resolve their peer-to-peer conflict?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When two leaders are locked in a power struggle over cross-departmental workflows, the root cause is almost always a lack of clarity in your Accountability Chart. This friction slows down operations and creates confusion for the teams below them. You must resolve this by clarifying ownership.

Bring both leaders into a session to look at the Accountability Chart together. You must define which seat has final decision-making authority for the specific workflow in question. Only one seat can own a function. If two people own it, nobody owns it.

Once the seat ownership is clear, use your weekly Level 10 Meeting™ to IDS® the operational bottlenecks. Force the two leaders to identify the root cause of their issues, discuss potential solutions, and commit to specific To-Dos.

Remind them that their primary allegiance is to the leadership team, not to their individual departments. They must work together to find solutions that serve the entire organization, even if it means their own department has to adjust its processes. If they cannot collaborate as peers, you have a right person, wrong seat issue.