Signs your leadership team has room to improve

As a coach, I believe we all have room to improve. However, I also understand that you must make choices about where to invest your resources and leadership development should not always top the list. Here are five signs it should be a priority in the next six months:

1. Your team has a difficult time with vision and strategy conversations; you can rarely agree on anything but the status quo or incremental change.
2. You reach agreement in the room, but that agreement disappears as soon as the meeting ends.
3. You regularly take conversations “offline” to avoid discomfort in meetings.
4. Some personalities on the team seem like oil and water; you’re frustrated they can’t just “figure it out.”
5. You can’t remember the last time you talked about how you worked together as a team; you have no shared agreement for what “healthy relationships” looks, sound, and feel like.

The four elements of a high-performing leadership team

I have worked with dozens of leadership teams to improve their performance. Through rigorous research and client experience, I have identified four elements that define high-performing leadership teams:

1. Purpose: Why and how the leadership team (LT) serves the organization
2. Structure & Roles: The composition of the LT and the unique value each member provides
3. Process & Communication: How the LT works together to serve the organization
4. Self & Relationship Management: How the LT shows-up to support one-another and maintain healthy relationships

The graphic below provides more detail on what is included in each element.

Put this framework into practice to improve your team's performance

In my experience, most executives assume their team has agreement on these elements. But they have not gone through a process to validate these agreements. When I lead them through a validation process, there are always differences of opinion—particularly regarding individual roles and relationship management—that must be ironed out.

There are infinite ways you could look at the world. But just knowing you have choices isn’t enough. You also need a framework with specific choices available to you, so you can see what’s possible. Enter the Seven Leadership Mindsets.

This powerful framework distills the multitude of mindsets available to you down to seven tangible choices. It’s powered by the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC) Energy Leadership Index, which is the result of over three decades of rigorous research and development. The graphic below provides an overview of each mindset in terms of its core thoughts, core feelings, and core results. If you’d like to dive into the details and nuances that really bring them to life, please reach out.