What would help this person carry a responsibility you still hold for them?

You may trust someone’s intentions and still hesitate to leave an important decision with them. Confidence grows when you can see their preparation, reasoning and follow-through.

Leadership development gives that work a deliberate structure. Start with one seat and one person. Agree on the responsibility, provide useful support, practice real work and review what happened before deciding what they can own next.

Make today's responsibilities visible

Start with one recent decision. Identify who did the work, who could decide and what still came back to you.

Start the responsibility review

Written preparation for Put a Name on Every Number, the one-page Member worksheet. You can use an existing company record.

Choose a responsibility you can observe

Use the five-year leadership roadmap, current role description and separate function/person assessments to choose the priority. The function may need a dependable forecast; the leader may need practice explaining its assumptions and recommending a response.

Keep those needs connected without treating them as the same diagnosis. Installing better reporting does not establish who can interpret it. A capable leader may need time and help to build a system they inherited.

A useful assignment is smaller than “be more strategic.” In a hypothetical revenue review, ask the leader to explain the forecast difference using source records, compare two workable responses and recommend one within their authority.

Practice the handoff together

Move through the support the person actually needs:

1. Demonstrate the work. Explain the questions, evidence and trade-offs behind the decision.
2. Work together. Ask the leader to contribute and explain their thinking.
3. Let them lead while you observe. Give them room to prepare, recommend and act.
4. Review the result and feedback. Include people affected by the work where appropriate.
5. Transfer the defined responsibility. Agree what they decide independently and what you continue to review.

Different responsibilities can be at different stages. A finance leader may own the close while still practicing the cash forecast. Use qualified technical help where you cannot teach the work yourself.

The CEO develops the functional leaders. If you hold the CEO role, this is your responsibility. If someone else is CEO, work through that person and agree what you will review as owner.

Agree on expectations before judging the result

Explain the business direction, the seat’s current responsibility and what you want to develop next. Ask what is unclear and what information, authority, time or support is missing.

Record the responsibility to practice, the evidence that will demonstrate it, the support, decision boundaries, next commitment and review date. Add what you will stop doing as the handoff is earned. That makes the intended change visible to both people.

Use one existing agreement, the leader’s Game Plan or the optional CFO, CRO or COO Leadership Development Plan. Keep personal evidence appropriately private. A prepared conversation script is useful; it does not prove agreement.

Use the monthly meeting to hear the leader’s thinking

Ask the leader to prepare their results, explanations, current priority and recommendation. Work through a win, the dashboard, relevant function and person findings, the Game Plan, the constraint and a checkable commitment.

The current monthly packet provides the functional agenda, each role’s two-page review, the CEO’s private debrief and the separate owner-and-CEO review. Use the relevant pages or an equivalent company record. Suggested meeting times support planning; speed is not the completion test.

Ask what happened, what supports the explanation, what it changes about the outlook and what response the leader recommends. Keep the approved budget and changing forecast distinct. The underlying reports need consistent definitions and periods.

Check the prior commitment or an actual practice result. Decide whether to transfer responsibility, continue practicing with better support or change the assignment. A decision to continue can be appropriate when its reasoning is clear.

Afterward, review your own contribution. Did you give the leader room to think, provide the promised support or take the work back? Give specific feedback rather than keeping a private list of frustrations.

Connect development to quarterly and annual work

Monthly company reviews run through CRO, CFO and COO with the CEO, then owner with CEO. Community sessions support learning; your company meetings review your own work and decisions.

Quarterly, revisit both assessments using current evidence and choose the next development priority. You do not need to re-score all 54 items for a seat at every monthly meeting. Retain earlier reviews and distinguish a change in the rubric from a change in demonstrated capability.

Annual planning lets the leaders build and explain their parts of the next company budget. The CRO develops revenue assumptions, the COO develops capacity and delivery costs, and the CFO connects the financial consequences. The CEO resolves the trade-offs.

The first attempt may require substantial help. Future practice should give the leader more responsibility when the evidence supports it. There is no universal three-year schedule or score threshold that proves someone’s permanent limit.

What completion looks like

For at least one priority seat, you have agreed expectations, both supported assessments, a practice agreement and scheduled reviews. You have used them in a real monthly functional meeting, checked work and decided what the leader owns or practices next.

The leader can still need development. An installed process does not require independence in every seat, perfect assessment scores or waiting for the next annual budget to finish.

Open the five completion requirements

1. Choose the seat and establish the starting point

Reflect: Which responsibility do you want this leader to learn to own? What does the function need, and what can the person demonstrate today? Who will coach and review the work?

What to complete: name the priority seat, leader and CEO or reviewer. Review the seat description and complete both assessments with dates and supporting evidence. Keep the function’s gaps separate from the person’s readiness. Use existing assessments when their evidence still describes the current work.

Complete when: the seat and leader are named, the seat description has been reviewed, and both assessments are complete with evidence.

2. Agree on expectations with the leader

Reflect: Does the leader know what the business needs from this seat and why? Which expectations have been unclear? What do they need from you to succeed?

What to complete: have the conversation with the leader. Explain that you want to develop them toward the agreed responsibilities, connect the role to the business implications of the ownership goals, and work through what they own now and what they will learn next. Give them room to question the expectations and identify missing support. Record what you agreed and what is still unresolved.

Complete when: you and the leader have discussed and agreed on the role, expectations and development direction.

3. Agree on one responsibility to practice

Reflect: What real work will help the leader develop? What will show that they can carry it? Which part will you stop doing as the handoff is earned?

What to complete: record the responsibility, the result or capability to demonstrate, the support, decision boundaries, next commitment, review date and what you will stop doing. Connect the practice to the function’s current priority. Choose whether the leader needs to watch a demonstration, work alongside someone, lead while observed or carry the responsibility with outcome review.

Complete when: the practice, support, authority, next commitment, review date and intended handoff are recorded clearly enough for both people to follow.

4. Put the reviews and planning work on the calendar

Reflect: When will the leader bring the work and explain it? When will you revisit both assessments? Which part of annual planning will they prepare, and with what support?

What to complete: schedule the monthly functional reviews, the next quarterly assessment review and the leader’s annual planning responsibilities. Identify who prepares the work, who reviews it and the relevant dates. Use the company’s existing rhythm where it already serves these purposes.

Complete when: monthly reviews, the next quarterly assessment review and annual planning responsibilities are on the calendar. The next annual budget does not have to be finished to complete this milestone.

5. Review real work and decide what happens next

Reflect: What did the leader do, and how did they explain the result? Which commitment or practice result did you check? What does that evidence tell you to transfer, practice again or support differently?

What to complete: use the process in a real monthly functional meeting. Check an actual commitment or practice result, then use it to decide what the leader owns or practices next. Record the meeting date, the work reviewed, the result, the decision and next review date. An unmet commitment can inform useful feedback and another practice attempt; don’t turn it into a successful handoff on paper.

Complete when: the monthly meeting, checked work and decision about the next responsibility are evidenced, and monthly reviews are continuing with the next review scheduled. The leader can still need practice; the full seat doesn’t have to be independent.

Review the milestone-specific 0–3 score and evidence test

Zero, Not Started. You haven’t worked through the lessons or established a deliberate process for developing a leader. Responsibility still moves through informal requests, assumptions, or problems you take back yourself.

One, Learning. You’ve worked through the lessons and can explain how clear expectations, practice, feedback, and increasing responsibility develop judgment and trust. You can distinguish the function assessment from the person assessment. You haven’t yet put the development process into use for a specific seat.

Two, In Progress. You’ve chosen a priority seat and leader and started the work: reviewing the seat description, scoring both assessments, resetting expectations, or writing the practice agreement. Some pieces are incomplete, or the process is prepared but hasn’t yet been used and followed through in a real monthly meeting.

Three, Installed. For at least one priority seat, you’ve agreed on the role and expectations with the leader, completed both assessments with evidence, and recorded the responsibility being practiced, the support, decision boundaries, next commitment, review date, and what you will stop doing as the handoff is earned. You’ve used the process in a real monthly functional meeting, checked a commitment or practice result, and used that evidence to decide what the leader owns or practices next. Monthly reviews are continuing, with the next review scheduled; the next quarterly assessment review and annual planning responsibilities are on the calendar. The process is running; the leader does not have to be fully independent in the entire seat.

Verification test: Open the priority seat’s assessments, practice agreement, and most recent monthly meeting notes. Show the commitment or practice result you checked at the most recent monthly review, the decision it informed, what responsibility the leader now owns or will practice next, and the next review date. Another person should be able to follow the agreement and evidence without relying on your memory.

Use suitable existing work. Record each requirement as complete, incomplete or not reviewed, with its evidence and date. You choose the saved score; keep owner, peer, coach and AI assessments separate. Missing access remains unreviewed rather than automatically zero. Preserve prior reviews and identify the next action, responsible person and review date.

Maintain the agreement and the evidence

Keep the current agreement and assessments in Your Leadership Team, dated meeting work in The Rhythm, and linked financial support in The Numbers. Use one maintained Playbook.

Continue monthly practice with the next review scheduled. Put the next quarterly assessment review and annual planning responsibilities on the calendar. Revise the five-year leadership roadmap when new evidence changes the support, staffing, cost or timing.

Module 8 connects defined responsibilities to compensation. Bring the actual role, authority and supported company plan into that conversation.

Explore useful ways to develop a leader

• 510. The Leadership Development Plan, with Ryan and Kim: connect the agreement, monthly discussion and continuing review.
• 506. Leadership Is a Trade, Not a Personality, with David Kachoui: develop management through specific skills and supported practice.
• 485. You Found the Leader. Now How Do You Make Them Stay?, with Steve Moss: consider mentoring, feedback and integration alongside capability.
• Leadership Readiness Assessment: keep the person’s demonstrated contribution distinct from the company’s systems.

Choose your next step

Review the wider system. Use the Ownership Assessment to consider this work beside your goals and the other milestones. Choose a useful priority from the evidence.

Bring the plan together with support. The 90-Day Boardroom Blueprint connects ownership direction, the financial foundation and decisions in a first usable Playbook. You can explore help directly; taking the Assessment is not a purchase prerequisite.

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