“Yet with a culture of individual accountability and self-reliance pervading executive suites, few senior executive groups ever function as real teams.”
-Jon R. Katzenbach, Teams at the Top
Many factors account for the success of a business. However, few are more important than “the leadership process,” which is the way in which an organization’s top staff or managers work together to achieve business results.
Do they have a common vision of the future and strategy to achieve that vision? How do they set goals and define priorities? How clear are their values? Do they “walk the talk?” Do they trust each other? Collaborate cross-functionally? How do they communicate? Are they able to talk about sensitive topics? How do they make decisions? Hold one another accountable? Balance daily urgencies against the long-term development of the organization? Work out inevitable conflicts and competing priorities?
At The Center for Organizational Design, we believe that “the leadership process” is a critical driver of an organization’s ability to meet the demands of the business environment, execute their business strategy, build a culture of engaged employees, and succeed long-term.
Unfortunately, far too many leadership teams do not do this well. They spend more time on operational than strategic issues. They focus more on their individual roles than their collective responsibilities. They lack a clear definition of their purpose and shared core work. And they often lack the procedures and structure to enable them to work effectively together.
In truth, it is impossible for leaders at the top of an organization (large or small) to provide the leadership necessary for an organization to become high performing if they have not defined how they will work together.
We guide teams through a process of defining and improving their charter (mission, values, goals/metrics, etc.), design (how they organize themselves to accomplish their work), and relationships (their respect, trust, cohesion and synergy) so they can become a cohesive team with a common focus, able to rally people behind them, and achieve outstanding business results.
How well the top team manages their own “leadership process” is a critical driver of their ability to meet the demands of the business environment, execute their business strategy, design an effective organization, build a culture of engaged employees, and succeed long-term.
For more information, please click here
