I hear a recurring issue from CEOs. They’re frustrated with the silos that have formed in their organizations and don’t know how to break them down. Everyone is so focused on his or her own priorities, and therefore, there’s no alignment.
There are moments in leadership where nothing is obviously broken, but the work feels heavier than it should.
Decisions take longer than expected. Conversations circle back on themselves. Progress requires a level of effort that feels disproportionate to the problem at hand.
There is a moment that shows up in leadership teams that is easy to move past too quickly.
The conversation has been thorough. Perspectives have been shared. The group appears to be aligned.
And yet, something doesn’t sit right…
There’s a phrase I hear often when I’m working with executive teams:
“We just need a little more information.”
And sometimes that’s true. Thoughtful leadership requires rigor. It requires testing assumptions and understanding implications before moving forward.
But there’s a particular moment I’ve learned to listen for. It’s when the analysis is largely complete, the tradeoffs are clear, and yet the decision continues to drift.
When I sit with leadership teams early in the year, I often observe two conversations happening at once.
There’s the visible one—goals, priorities, plans. And then there’s the quieter one, happening beneath the surface. The issues no one quite names. The tensions people assume will resolve themselves once things get busy.
When I work with executive teams, the greatest challenges almost always come back to people, even when the strategy and process are solid. Over and over, I see that how individuals show up for each other determines the speed, the trust, and the overall health of the team. One framework that consistently makes a meaningful difference is Patrick Lencioni’s Ideal Team Player model: Humble, Hungry and Smart.
