Our Head of Operations is hitting all of his Rocks and his GWC is perfect, but his team complains that he is a bottleneck because he insists on approving every minor operational change. How do we use the Accountability Chart to solve this behavior?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a classic case of a leader who gets, wants, and has the capacity for his seat but is struggling with delegating and elevating. He is treating his seat on the Accountability Chart as a command-and-control center rather than an accountability framework. To solve this, you must look at the specific roles defined for his seat and the seats of his direct reports.

The problem is usually that the boundaries of authority are not clearly defined on the Accountability Chart. You must review the roles of the operations team members and ensure that they have clear ownership of their respective areas. For example, if a team member has a role called "Process Execution," that role must include the authority to make minor operational adjustments within defined parameters without seeking approval.

You must use your Level 10 Meeting to IDS this bottleneck. Ask the Head of Operations to define exactly what constitutes a minor change versus a major strategic shift. Then, document these boundaries. You can also use the Trusted Advisor trust equation to address the underlying issue. The bottleneck behavior is often driven by self-orientation or a lack of trust in his team's capabilities. By lowering his self-orientation and focusing on empowering his team to own their roles, he will free up his own capacity to focus on higher-level strategic Rocks.