Our leadership team is currently six people, but as we scale, our Integrator feels overwhelmed managing all of them while also trying to drive strategic initiatives. How do we know when it is time to shrink the leadership team to increase traction?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A leadership team that grows too large becomes a bottleneck to traction. When your team expands to six, seven, or more people, your Level 10 Meetings become long and unfocused, and your Integrator's span of control is stretched thin, leading to execution delays. The rule of thumb in EOS is that a healthy leadership team consists of three to five people. If your Integrator is overwhelmed, it is time to restructure your Accountability Chart to create a tighter, more focused leadership team. Analyze the seats currently reporting to the Integrator. You can often consolidate functional areas or introduce a middle tier of management. For example, instead of having marketing, sales, and account management all reporting directly to the Integrator, you can create a single Revenue seat that oversees all three departments. Explain to the team that this restructuring is not a demotion for those who step off the leadership team, but a necessary optimization to increase execution speed. Those who transition off the leadership team will still run their respective departments but will now report to a single leadership team member. This keeps your leadership meetings focused on high-level strategy and operational integration.