I respect what you're trying to do at the top. The strategy isn't the issue. The issue is that your strategy is dying somewhere between the executive floor and the people actually doing the work.
Your director and middle management layer is broken, and has been broken for nearly a decade. Too many people at that level are in self-preservation mode — protecting headcount to justify their own roles, avoiding decisions that carry any personal risk, and spending more energy on internal politics than on execution. They're not translating your vision downward. They're filtering it, diluting it, or just sitting on it.
The ICs and front-line managers see this clearly. They're the ones dealing with shifting priorities, contradictory guidance from different directors trying to claim credit or avoid blame, and a general sense that nobody in the middle is actually fighting for them. Your best people leave quietly. The ones who stay learn to keep their heads down.
The pandemic bo-m made this worse. Stock went up, directors got comfortable, and "don't rock the boat" became the unspoken operating principle for an entire layer of leadership. When the downturn hit, it was the individual contributors who absorbed the pain. The political operators in the middle largely kept their seats.
You have the data. Look at which directors are actually shipping results versus which ones are just managing up. Look at attrition patterns on their teams. Look at how long decisions take to move through their orgs. The answers are there.
The next round of hard conversations shouldn't only be about headcount. It should be about whether the people between you and the work are leading or just occupying space.