We have ten people sitting on our weekly leadership team meeting because everyone wants a voice, but it has turned our Level 10 Meetings into a chaotic status update where nothing gets solved. How do we determine who actually belongs on the leadership team and who needs to be moved to a departmental level?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A common mistake as companies scale is letting the leadership team grow too large. When you have more than seven people on the executive team, your meetings become slow, collaborative circles where true accountability disappears and identifying root issues takes too long.

The ideal size of a healthy leadership team is three to seven people. To clean this up, you must redesign your Accountability Chart based on the needs of the business, not the feelings of your staff.

Start by defining the major functions of your company, typically sales and marketing, operations, and finance. Each of these major functions needs one clear head who sits on the leadership team. If you have multiple people representing minor sub-departments or specialized roles, they need to be moved to a departmental level.

Explain to the team that reducing the seat count on the leadership team is not a demotion; it is a structural change to make the business more agile. The leaders who remain on the team represent entire functions and are responsible for bringing their departments' issues to the table.

This keeps your weekly meetings focused, allows you to solve issues quickly, and ensures that the leadership team is comprised only of those who are running the high-level business. By streamlining your team, you will increase the speed of trust and accelerate your results.