Co-Leadership

Features

Some organizations have two people sharing leadership at the top — co-CEOs, co-founders, partner-firm principals, or co-chairs. OrgCanvas renders these as equal peers at the same level, connected by a horizontal peer line, instead of artificially stacking one above the other.

Common use cases

• Co-CEOs — Two executives sharing CEO responsibilities
• Co-founders — Multiple founders running the company together
• Partner firms — Law firms, consultancies, or agencies with managing partners as peers
• Family businesses — Siblings or family members co-running an operation

How to add a co-leader

There are three ways to pair two top-level people as co-leaders — pick whichever surface feels most natural. They all open the same picker.

1. Right-click the person

1. Right-click the person you want to make a co-leader
2. Click Make Co-Leader…
3. Pick the peer they'll lead alongside from the modal

2. From the edit panel

1. Click the person to open their edit panel on the right
2. Below the Reports To dropdown, click the indigo Make co-leader… button
3. Pick the peer from the modal

3. From the table view

1. Switch to table view (press 3 or use the View dropdown)
2. Find the top-level person's row and click the small icon next to the trash button
3. Pick the peer from the modal

Both people now render side-by-side at the same level, with a horizontal peer line connecting them — the standard visual convention for shared leadership.

Ending a co-leader pairing

Use any of the same three surfaces above — the option label flips to End Co-Leadership with [Name] when the person is already paired. Click it to dissolve the pair; both people return to top-level (separate roots).

What happens behind the scenes

OrgCanvas creates a small invisible structural node above the two co-leaders so the layout treats them as siblings. You'll never see this node in the chart, the table view, exports, or counts — it's purely for layout. If you ever inspect the data, it appears as a node with hidden: true.

Adding a third or fourth co-leader

You can keep adding more co-leaders by setting their Reports To to Co-leader of [any existing co-leader]. They'll join the same group and all render as peers at the top.

When one co-leader leaves

Delete the departing co-leader the normal way. OrgCanvas automatically:

• Promotes their direct reports to the surviving co-leader
• Removes the invisible structural node (since co-leadership has ended)
• Surfaces a small notification: "Co-leadership ended — [Name] is now the sole leader."

The surviving leader becomes a normal single-CEO root and the chart looks like any standard org chart.

Unlinking without deleting

To break a co-leadership without removing anyone:

1. Open one of the co-leaders
2. Change Reports To to — None (Top Level) — or to a real manager
3. Save

Both people are now independent. If only one was left in the original co-leader group, the structural node is automatically cleaned up.

Where co-leadership applies

Co-leadership currently applies to top-level roles only — the people at the very top of your org chart. The "Co-leader of" option in the Reports To dropdown only appears for people who don't have a manager above them.

For mid-tree co-management (two co-VPs of Engineering, for example), use dotted-line reporting instead — it captures shared management without needing to restructure the hierarchy.

CSV imports

If your spreadsheet has multi-manager values like "Liz / Jordan" or "Smith & Jones" in the manager column, OrgCanvas will recognize the pattern and create the co-leadership relationship automatically on import. You don't need to set it up manually after the fact.