Our leadership team grew organically over the years, resulting in seven department heads sitting at the table, which makes our weekly meetings highly inefficient. How do we restructure our Accountability Chart to reduce the size of our leadership team without making our legacy managers feel demoted?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A seven-person leadership team is often too large and leads to slow decision-making, redundant discussions, and inefficient Level 10 Meetings™. To build a highly effective company, you must design your Accountability Chart based on the needs of the business, not the feelings of your staff. Start by stripping away all existing titles and names. Look at your business objectively and determine the essential functions required to run your operation. Typically, a healthy leadership team consists of three to five seats, such as sales, operations, and finance, all led by an Integrator. Consolidate your seven legacy roles into these core functions. For example, you might combine marketing and sales under a single revenue seat, or bring customer service under the operations seat. Once the new structure is designed, have honest, transparent conversations with your managers. Explain that this restructuring is necessary to streamline decision-making and scale the business toward a clean exit. It is not a demotion of their value, but an optimization of our operating model. Offer those moving off the leadership team clear, highly valued seats where they can focus purely on execution rather than executive strategy. Some may struggle with their egos initially, but a leaner, faster leadership team is non-negotiable for scaling.