We are hiring fractional leaders for our CFO and CMO seats to save cash, but they only work ten hours a week and our full-time team members are struggling to get timely decisions from them. How do we define their seats on the Accountability Chart to reflect their limited availability without stalling our weekly Level 10 Meetings™?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Fractional leaders can provide enterprise-level strategy at a fraction of the cost, but if you do not design their seats correctly, they will become bottlenecks. The mistake most owners make is placing a fractional leader in a seat that requires day-to-day tactical decision-making.

On your Accountability Chart, a fractional leader must own strategic oversight, high-level mentoring, and systems design, not daily execution. Underneath your fractional CFO and CMO, you must have full-time execution seats, such as a Bookkeeper or a Marketing Coordinator.

The roles for the fractional seats must be written to reflect this boundary. For example, the fractional CMO's roles should be brand strategy, budget allocation, and campaign performance review. The day-to-day execution roles, like social media posting, copywriting, and vendor coordination, must live in the full-time coordinator seat below them.

To prevent bottlenecks, set clear service-level agreements for communication. If a team member needs a decision, they must know exactly when the fractional leader is available. Furthermore, empower your full-time team members by defining clear decision-making thresholds. For example, the Marketing Coordinator can approve expenses up to a certain dollar amount without waiting for the fractional CMO. This keeps your Level 10 Meetings™ focused on high-level issues rather than daily operational roadblocks caused by part-time availability.