Our middle managers have seats on the Accountability Chart, but they refuse to practice LMA because they are too busy doing the actual work. How do we restructure their roles so that managing, leading, and holding people accountable is recognized as eighty percent of their seat instead of an afterthought?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When managers spend all their time doing the work, it is usually because their seats are poorly defined or they lack the capacity to lead. In EOS, the acronym LMA stands for Leading, Managing, and holding people Accountable. It is a non-negotiable role for any seat with direct reports.

To fix this, you must explicitly list LMA as the very first role on their seat on the Accountability Chart. If LMA is not documented as a core responsibility, your managers will naturally default to the tactical tasks they feel comfortable with.

Next, you must reduce their tactical responsibilities. You cannot expect a manager to lead a team of five people if they also carry a full production workload. Look at their seat and offload their tactical tasks to their direct reports or automate them.

Evaluate your managers on their GWC for LMA. Do they actually want to manage people? Many high-performing individual contributors want the title and pay of a manager but do not want the actual work of coaching, mentoring, and holding others accountable.

If they do not GWC the LMA portion of the seat, you must move them back to an individual contributor seat. A healthy Accountability Chart requires leaders who are fully committed to building their team and running effective Level 10 Meetings.