Build the Leadership Team You Need

I recently talked with a CEO who leads two companies inside a family-owned enterprise. One had 11 people on its leadership team. The other had eight. Both companies had fewer than 30 employees.

He knew something needed to change. But when people have worked together for years, deciding who should be part of the leadership team gets complicated.

Here’s where I’d start: At your next leadership meeting, watch what people are being asked to do.

Who’s accountable for a major function of the business? Who’s helping solve company-level issues? Who needs to be part of the decisions that move the entire company forward? And who is just there because they need context, represent a department, or have always been included? Those are different responsibilities.

You don’t need to decide who stays or goes during that meeting. First, get clear on what you’re asking your leadership team to do. Then look at The Accountability Chart® and decide what Seats your business needs for the next 6 to 12 months.

That will give you a much better place to start the conversation.

Focus Points
“Right people, right seats is not optional, and avoiding it only creates bigger problems later.”
- Gino Wickman, founder of EOS Worldwide

Who Belongs on Your
EOS® Leadership Team?

Building the right leadership team gets harder when tenure, ownership, and long-standing relationships become part of the decision.

In this article, I share how I help teams separate the structure of the business from the people currently sitting in it. I talk about how GWC® helps you evaluate who should fill which Seats, and how to restructure without treating a leadership team Seat as a measure of someone’s value.

Sept. 4: The Science of Scaling with
Dr. Ben Hardy

Dr. Ben Hardy, author of The Science of Scaling, will join me for a live conversation about what it takes to pursue a 10X goal with discipline.

We’ll cover his Frame, Floor, and Focus framework, plus the standards and focus required to go after a bigger outcome.

September 4, 2026 | 1:00 p.m. ET

The Math of Trust

I’ve been part of Ninety for 8 of our 10 years, so there’s a lot of history behind how we built the company and how we learned to lead it.

I joined Ninety founder and CEO Mark Abbott on the Founder’s Framework® podcast to talk about what we got right, what we got wrong, how COVID changed our path, and the Math of Trust framework we’ve used to make some difficult leadership decisions.

We also get into leadership development, knowing when the business has outgrown what used to work, and a few things I would do differently today.