One of the hardest parts of leadership is deciding whether someone is the right person for a seat.
Leaders running on EOS® regularly ask whether a person Gets it, Wants it, and has the Capacity to do it. Before asking that question about anyone else, there is a more personal question worth confronting:
Do I GWC™ my own seat?
This is not a character test. A changing seat does not make someone a bad employee or a failed leader. It may simply mean the requirements of the seat, the needs of the business, or your own capacity have changed.
What GWC means
EOS Worldwide defines GWC as a yes-or-no assessment of whether someone Gets the seat, Wants the seat, and has the Capacity to do the seat well. All three answers must be yes.
My purpose here is not to redefine that EOS tool. It is to offer a practical quarterly self-review for owners and leaders whose roles rarely stay still.
GWC is a point-in-time assessment
People change. Businesses change. Seats change.
The role that fit when a company had 15 employees may require different skills, time, and leadership at 75 employees. You may develop new strengths. Your interests or family circumstances may change. Work that once energized you may become work you no longer want to own.
That is why I encourage leaders to revisit their own seats every quarter. Healthy organizations do not assume yesterday's fit is still today's fit. They check.
A four-part quarterly self-review
1. Name every seat you occupy
Entrepreneurial leaders often carry more than one seat. You may be the Visionary™, the Integrator™, and the head of a function. You may also own another business, serve on a board, or lead a nonprofit.
List each seat separately. Do not let success in one seat hide a problem in another.
- What seats do I currently occupy?
- Which seats did I accept temporarily but never release?
- Which seat deserves most of my leadership attention this quarter?
2. Define success before evaluating yourself
You cannot judge fit against a blurry seat. Clarify the handful of responsibilities, decisions, and measurable outcomes that define success.
- What am I ultimately accountable for?
- What decisions belong to this seat?
- What results must this seat produce in the next 90 days?
- What would a capable replacement need to understand?
Clarity comes before accountability.
3. Give yourself an honest yes or no
Do I Get it?
EOS describes this as understanding the role, its responsibilities, the culture, the expectations, and the what, how, and why of the job. I also find it useful to notice whether the work fits how you naturally think and solve problems. That is my diagnostic lens, not a replacement definition for the EOS tool.
Do I Want it?
Do you genuinely want the day-to-day work, not just the title, influence, history, or compensation attached to the seat?
Do I have the Capacity to do it?
Capacity includes time, skill, knowledge, emotional bandwidth, physical capacity, and the ability to handle the complexity of the seat. It must be sustainable. A temporary sprint is not the same as long-term capacity.
4. Turn every no into an issue
A no does not automatically mean someone should leave. It means the leadership team has something real to solve.
The answer may be clearer expectations, training, coaching, redesigned responsibilities, a different seat, or a transition plan. Put the gap on the Issues List and decide what the business and the person need next.
A quick quarterly check
For each seat, write one sentence answering each question:
- What does success in this seat require now?
- Do I Get it?
- Do I Want it?
- Do I have the Capacity to do it sustainably?
- What is the one issue or action this review reveals?
The point is not self-criticism. It is clarity.
Everyone deserves a seat they GWC. Strong leaders work to make that true for themselves before requiring it of anyone else.