Two of our leadership team members are constantly stepping on each other's toes because our sales and operations seats have overlapping responsibilities. How do we draw a hard line between them?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When two leaders are stepping on each other's toes because of overlapping responsibilities, it is a structural failure of your Accountability Chart, not a personality conflict. In EOS®, we have a strict rule: there can only be one name accountable for each seat.

If your sales and operations seats have overlapping roles, you must sit down with both leaders and rebuild those seats on the Accountability Chart. Review the five major roles for each seat and look for any ambiguity.

For example, if both leaders claim accountability for client onboarding, you have a structural bottleneck. You must decide which seat has ultimate accountability. Does sales own the relationship until the contract is signed, and then operations takes over? Draw a hard line where the handoff occurs.

Write down the exact handoff process and make it a measurable on your Scorecard. Both leaders must agree to this new structure and commit to respecting the boundaries of each other's seats.

Once the roles are clearly separated, the friction will disappear. Your leaders will no longer waste energy defending their turf and can focus instead on hitting their individual Rocks and supporting each other's success.