Our leadership team has grown to nine members because we wanted to be inclusive and ensure all key managers felt valued, but our weekly Level 10 Meetings are now highly inefficient. We spend all of our time on updates and never have enough time for deep IDS. How do we restructure this team to make it functional again without alienating the people we remove?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

An inclusive leadership team is often an ineffective leadership team. The ideal size for a highly functional, healthy leadership team is between three and seven people. Once you exceed seven, the team becomes bloated, communication breaks down, and your weekly meetings turn into status reports instead of strategic problem-solving sessions.

To fix this, you must look at your Accountability Chart, not your org chart. Redefine the major functions of your business. Typically, these are sales and marketing, operations, finance, and potentially technology or administration, all coordinated by the Integrator.

Determine which seats are truly strategic leadership roles. Anyone who does not own one of these major business functions should not be on the leadership team. Move them to a departmental level.

When you transition people off the leadership team, handle it with transparency. Explain that this change is about structural efficiency, not personal performance. Show them that by slimming the leadership team, you are empowering them to lead their own departmental L10 meetings, where they can solve problems closer to the ground. Emphasize that their new structure will allow the business to scale and prepare for a clean exit, which ultimately benefits everyone. This clarity reduces resentment and restores speed to your leadership team.