Our Head of Technology is an exceptional programmer and fits our core values perfectly, but as our team has grown, the seat now requires heavy people management and vendor negotiations. He is miserable managing people and is failing at it, but we cannot afford to lose his technical genius. How do we handle this Right Person, Wrong Seat situation?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a classic scaling dilemma. You have a Right Person in the Wrong Seat because the seat itself has evolved beyond his natural strengths and desires. He gets and wants the technical coding, but he does not want or have the capacity for the people management side of the expanded role.

If you keep him in this seat, your technology department will stagnate, your developers will quit due to poor management, and he will eventually burn out. You must take action immediately to protect both the business and the employee.

The solution is to split the legacy Head of Technology seat into two distinct seats on your Accountability Chart. Create a new leadership seat, such as a Chief Technology Officer or VP of Engineering, which will own the strategic direction, department budget, and people management. Then, create a separate individual contributor seat, such as Principal Architect or Lead Developer, which focuses purely on coding, technical design, and system architecture.

Move your legacy employee into this newly created technical seat, where he can excel without the burden of direct reports. He will now GWC his new seat perfectly. You can then recruit an external leader to fill the management-focused seat. This transition honors his unique skills, keeps a great culture fit on the team, and structures your organization to support future growth.