Table of Contents for Leadership Team Alignment
Introduction: Why This Book, Who It's For, and What's in It for You
Leadership team (LT) issues are often misdiagnosed because leaders view the issues their teams face as unique and rooted in personal conflicts of team members, when they are often generic dysfunctionalities with structural causes common to all LTs. This book aims to help readers correctly diagnose issues affecting their LT and proposes appropriate remedies to address them. The book's actionable insights are informed by over eight hundred hours of direct observation of fifty-six LTs, as well as by exchanges with the more than fifteen hundred CEOs and senior executives who attended the authors' executive MBA and executive education programs globally and, finally, by an in-depth study of the literature applying to LTs from a wide array of fields (e.g., management, sociology, politics, negotiations). LT leaders are the book's primary audience, but it also provides value to executives and board members, as well as consultants and scholars.
1.The Dual Role of LT Members
Every LT member has two fundamental roles, the first as organizational leader and the second as leader of their function or unit. This chapter describes how the latter role has LT members acting as spokespersons for strategic objectives specific to their function or unit and how their defense of these objectives is the source of most LT conflicts. The chapter highlights three consequences when LT members act as spokespersons, one of which is that LTs are designed for conflict. Such conflict is necessary for organizational performance, but it is often mistakenly treated as a sign of dysfunction. The chapter ends with six actionable insights that flow from LT members' dual role, including that CEOs should appoint LT members who are comfortable and experienced with conflict if they want their organization to perform well.
2.Power Games at the Top
This chapter explains why power games are an inevitable part of life at the top before highlighting how LT members sometimes misuse their power to promote their unit or function's agenda in ways that CEOs must recognize and, at times, counter, for the good of the organization. The chapter offers nine actionable insights so that CEOs can develop an awareness of the power games that their executives are playing and then act when power imbalances between members of their team threaten team effectiveness.
3.Of Hubs, Spokes, and Silo Busting
The management literature typically focuses attention on three LT operating models: Hub and Spoke, Team, and CEO-Adviser. The term model creates the impression that LT functioning is static, and CEOs must provide an absolutely final answer to the questions, "Which LT operating model should I choose?" and "Which one is the best?" But in practice, LT functioning is far from static, and so it is more useful to view the three models as modes that LTs move in and out of. As a result, the better question for CEOs is, "When should I use each mode?"
4.Who Really Sits on Your LT, and What Is Its Role?
It's important to identify who an LT team's members are before discussing what role an LT should play. As this chapter makes clear, this is not as straightforward as it seems because of the confusion surrounding the definition of "leadership team." This chapter cuts through this confusion before discussing two roles that every LT must play but that few master because of misconceptions that surround them. The first role is tied to strategic decision making, which is to be distinguished from strategic decision taking. The second role is to support strategic alignment. a shared understanding, and commitment to the organization's strategy by LT members.. The chapter concludes with six actionable insights to help CEOs set the conditions that enable their team to play both roles effectively.
5.Getting Your LT's Size and Composition Right
This chapter examines how the "fast fashion industry of CXOs" has contributed to an explosion of new C-level executive positions and put pressure on CEOs to add members to their LTs. It answers two questions many CEOs are now confronted with: "Should I add the latest, fashionable CXO position to my LT?" and "Is my LT too big and, if so, what can I do about it?" To help answer these questions, this chapter looks at the evolution of positions commonly found on LTs today. It then goes on to discuss the pros and cons of big versus small LTs as a means of introducing criteria that CEOs can use when adding any new position to their team. The chapter ends by offering insights on how to manage a team whose size has made it seemingly unmanageable.
6.Assess Your LT and Fix It
This chapter begins by explaining why traditional approaches to improving LT effectiveness rarely produce lasting effects and suggests that CEOs who wish to improve their team's effectiveness should start by assessing it along three dimensions: constructive conflict, productive collaboration, and continuous alignment. All three are defined, and a simple tool to assess them is provided. The chapter introduces a framework—the POP, which stands for purpose, outcomes, and process—to improve their LT's effectiveness in a sustainable way. It does so by leveraging the science of habit formation. How to implement the POP is then described, and common questions related to its implementation are answered.