We have two top-producing sales directors who run our East and West territories, and both insist on co-holding the Sales Leader seat on our leadership team because picking one will alienate the other. Why does EOS strictly forbid co-holding a seat, and how do we resolve this without losing one of our top revenue producers?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

EOS strictly forbids two names in one seat because when two people are accountable, nobody is accountable. When your company misses its revenue target, co-leaders inevitably point fingers. One blames the other region, or worse, they avoid tough decisions to maintain peace between themselves. A leadership seat requires a single owner who carries the weight of the company-wide number on the Scorecard.

Co-holding the seat also paralyzes the frontline sales team. When reps receive conflicting directives from two heads of sales, execution grinds to a halt. You do not solve this problem by appeasing egos at the top.

To resolve this cleanly, look at the structure before the people. Your Accountability Chart should have one Head of Sales seat on the leadership team. Beneath that seat, create two distinct regional sales seats: East Territory Director and West Territory Director. Each regional seat has five clear roles focused on regional pipeline, rep coaching, client acquisition, and territory revenue.

Now look at your two producers using GWC. Leading an entire enterprise sales organization requires strategic planning, revenue forecasting, cross-departmental collaboration, and coaching. Does either director genuinely Want the enterprise leadership seat, or do they simply want territory autonomy and prestige? Often, top producers hate the corporate administrative overhead of running an entire department.

If one clearly has GWC for the top seat, promote that person and compensate the other generously to run their region with full autonomy. If neither fits the enterprise seat or promoting one will blow up the culture, bring in an outside VP of Sales and keep both directors where they make money.