How to tell when a leadership team isn’t firing on all cylinders

How can you tell when a leadership team isn’t firing on all cylinders?

We know that leadership teams have a huge impact on the success of their organisation. Research from Bain & Companyshows that organisations with highly effective leadership teams are six times more likely to be top performers in their industry.

The challenge is that you usually only see that after the leadership team has been effective.

So what are the signs that something isn’t quite right?

The early signals are often subtle

Very often the first signs are not dramatic.

They show up in the tone and texture of conversations.

Meetings remain polite. People are pleasant with each other. But something feels slightly constrained.

Conversations feel guarded, as though people are not quite saying what is really on their mind.

Another signal is that there are fewer disagreements than there should be.

Disagreement, when it is handled well, is extremely useful. It surfaces differences of opinion and extends the range of thinking in the room. Without it, teams drift into group-think.

But when a leadership team starts avoiding disagreement, what you often see instead is this:

  • People speaking more carefully than honestly

  • Team members walking on eggshells

  • Conversations moving quickly past anything awkward

It is as though there is an unspoken agreement in the room:
“We are not opening that can of worms.”

Behaviours that begin to appear

When a team is not working well together, certain patterns start to show up.

One of the clearest signs is that decisions begin to drift.

Something that appeared to be agreed in the meeting slowly unravels afterwards. The decision gets revisited outside the room.

You start hearing conversations like:

“Did we really just agree on that?”

These corridor conversations begin happening everywhere.

At the same time, other behaviours begin to emerge:

  • People start protecting their own departments

  • Teams revert quietly to silo thinking

  • Individuals become cautious about committing resources

  • The room waits to see which way the leader is going to go

Instead of shared leadership, everyone begins watching the leader for signals.

Why these signals matter

These signals matter because the rest of the organisation is constantly reading the leadership team.

Uncertainty at the top spreads very quickly.

When the leadership team is not fully aligned, the organisation experiences:

  • Mixed signals

  • Confusion about priorities

  • Hesitation about where to put effort and energy

Small tensions in the leadership team can quickly become structural problems throughout the organisation.

Which is why these early signals are worth paying attention to.

Because if the leadership team is not fully aligned, even in the room, the organisation will feel that very quickly.

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.