We have two veteran project managers who have shared the Head of Delivery seat for years, but our accountability is messy. Can we keep two names in this one seat on the Accountability Chart if they work well together?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The short answer is absolutely not. On an EOS Accountability Chart, you can have multiple people in the same type of seat, like five sales representatives sitting under a sales manager. But you can never have more than one name in a leadership or management seat.

When two people share a seat, nobody is actually accountable. If everyone is in charge, then no one is in charge. When a ball gets dropped, the inevitable response is that they thought the other person was handling it. This destroys clarity and frustrates your team.

You must resolve this by looking at the business needs, not the personalities. Ask yourself what the critical roles of that seat are. Then, choose one of two options.

Option one: Split the seat. If your business is large enough, you might have a Head of East Coast Delivery and a Head of West Coast Delivery. Each has clear, distinct accountability.

Option two: Choose one leader. One person must occupy the Head of Delivery seat, and the other person must report to them.

To make this transition, look at who truly GWC™: Gets, Wants, and has the Capacity to do the job. Use conative screening like the Kolbe Index to see who is naturally wired for the leadership and operational demands of the seat. The other person can then focus on what they do best without the burden of shared management.