Why the Condition of the Leadership Team Affects the Whole Organisation
How well the leadership team is functioning, and how tightly aligned those people are as a team, matters far beyond the team itself. Senior leaders are often much more visible than they realise, and the way they work together really sets the tone across the whole organisation.
In the article and video in this post, I explore how that has big impacts on how people feel about their work, and on the outcomes they can produce for the business.
Why does the way a leadership team works together matter so much for the rest of the organisation?
People take their cues from leadership behaviour. We know this from common sense, and we also know it from research. For example, the Culture 500 survey analysed around a million and a half employee reviews. The overwhelming finding was this:
Culture is shaped by what leaders do, not what they say, or what they tell you to do.
Sull, D., Sull, C., & Zweig, B. (2019). The Culture 500. MIT Sloan Management Review & Glassdoor.
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/culture-500-introducing-the-2020-culture-champions
Alongside that, leadership teams are much more visible than they realise. One of my clients said to me:
“Nick, it’s like being in a giant goldfish bowl. Everybody sees everything you do, they hear everything you say.”
As a member of a leadership team, you cannot not be a visible role model. There is a massive link between how your leadership team behaves, and the culture that forms around and beneath it in the rest of your business.
What signals do people across the organisation pick up from the senior team?
The first signal people really pick up on is alignment:
- Are those leaders all pulling together in one direction?
- Or are they pulling in different directions?
Then there is behaviour:
- How are those leaders in meetings?
- Are they open with each other?
- Do they challenge in a way that is constructive?
- Do they give respect without avoiding conflict?
People also notice the tone and energy of senior leadership team members, as much as the formal decisions they make.
What tends to happen when the senior leadership team is well aligned?
When the leadership team is really well aligned, and the members of it are tight with each other, a clarity comes across. The members understand the direction they have set, they understand the priorities they have agreed, and that comes across clearly to everybody else in the organisation.
There is also a kind of speed and quality:
- Decisions are made faster
- They move into action more cleanly
- Confidence increases
- Members of the senior leadership team act without second-guessing each other
A simple question to ask
If you are a leader who wants to deal with these issues, a simple thing to ask yourself is this:
If people across the organisation copied the way this leadership team works together, what kind of culture would that create?
About me
I’m Nick Robinson. I work with senior leadership teams who sense they’re not yet working well enough together.
My programme The Shift is a development experience that helps leadership teams strengthen trust, alignment and how they function together, so the organisation benefits from clearer decisions, stronger collective leadership and better overall performance.
