Our leadership team has grown to nine members, and our weekly Level 10 Meeting has turned into a slow, bloated roundtable. How do we trim the leadership team back to a healthy size without causing political fallout?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A leadership team of nine is too large to make rapid, strategic decisions. When a team grows this big, weekly Level 10 Meetings™ become superficial, and real debates happen in the hallways instead of around the table. A healthy leadership team consists of three to seven people.

To restructure your team, you must put your personal feelings aside and focus entirely on the Accountability Chart. Design the right structure for the business first, completely ignoring the people who currently fill the roles. Look at the major functions of your business: typically Sales/Marketing, Operations, and Finance, led by an Integrator. Combine related departments under single seats on the Accountability Chart. For example, instead of having a head of inbound marketing, a head of outbound sales, and a head of customer success all on the leadership team, create one seat for a Sales and Marketing director.

Once the new structure is designed, evaluate your current leaders against the new seats using GWC™. Some of your current leaders will transition to vital director or manager roles that report to the leadership team. Frame this change not as a demotion, but as a necessary step to streamline operations and accelerate the business toward a clean exit.