Are the Right People in the Right Seats?
Welcome back to NEXT LEVEL Leadership, your weekly leadership newsletter to support your strengths, identify your gaps and create a strategy for greater margins and outcomes.
We’re starting our September 2026 newsletter with this thought:
NEXT LEVEL Leadership starts with KNOWING your people!
In the book Good to Great, Jim Collins introduces a leadership concept that you may be familiar with or likely heard of, as it has remained relevant for decades:
First Who, Then What.
Before determining where your team or organization is going, great leaders pay close attention to who is going with them —”getting the right people on the right bus and making sure they are in the right seats.”
It may sound simple, yet as a seasoned or up and coming leader, you may very well know that it can be easy when someone isn’t performing at the level you need them to be – you jump to the conclusion:
Maybe they’re just not the right person?
Sometimes that’s true.
And… sometimes you have the right person sitting in the wrong seat!
They may be capable, committed, aligned with your team and organization. And, they may be someone you genuinely want on the team and value their contributions. And yet, the tension forms when their current role isn’t allowing them to work from their natural strengths and skill sets.
And, there does come a time, when you have tried everything you can,
a person is not going to be able to fulfill their role and responsibilities.
Before you immediately start looking for someone new, take a closer look at the team you already have with this short quiz:
RIGHT PEOPLE, RIGHT SEATS CHECK-IN
Answer YES or NO:
1. Do the people on your team consistently demonstrate the values and behaviors your team and organization need?
2. Can you clearly identify the natural strengths and skill sets that each person brings to the team?
3. Are their strengths actually being utilized in their current roles?
4. Do you know where the collective strengths—and gaps—exist across your team that impact the organization?
5. When someone struggles, do you explore whether it’s a skill set, clarity, support or role-fit issue before deciding it’s a people issue?
6. Are you able to realize when someone is not going to work out, you have explored the options, given opportunities and a hard decision needs to be made?
HOW DID YOU SCORE?
4–6 YES: You likely have a strong foundation. Continue developing, challenging and retaining the people you’ve intentionally placed on your team.
2–3 YES: You may have the right people—but not necessarily in the right seats. Get curious about strengths, roles, expectations and gaps before making major personnel decisions.
0–1 YES: It’s time to take a deeper look at how you’re building your team or organization. You may not have a people problem as much as you have a lack of clarity around who and what your organization actually needs.
The goal isn’t simply to fill every seat right away,
It’s to understand your people well enough to put them in positions where they can THRIVE, and the organization can SUCCEED.
Tools to support:
- Myers-Briggs (MBTI)
- Team development workshops like Chelsea’s Manager Boot Camp
- Leadership development programs like TC&A’s NEXT LEVEL Leadership Tools &
- 1:1 or small group leadership coaching can help uncover natural strengths, communication preferences and opportunities that aren’t always visible on the surface.
Sometimes the next step isn’t finding a new person for the bus.
It’s helping someone who’s already there find the right seat.
At TC&A, we coach teams within organizations to better understand, build and develop their people. We look forward to connecting with you, if your team could benefit from a deeper look at its strengths, gaps and opportunities.
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