Blog: Thoughts on senior leadership

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As a senior leader, you are quite aware that you cannot lead a major organization without help. Most senior leaders create and lead a senior leadership team (SLT). Assuming you have the right people as members of your SLT, a crucial component to creating a cohesive team is to provide fertile ground to grow trust-based relationships.

There is an onus on your leadership team members to have the courage to take risks with the group and put forth their honest insights and opinions for the team’s consideration. General Chuck Krulak told me, “You try very hard early on to get people on board with you, to get them to think that they can make comments, think out of the box, and do all of these things without fear that they are going to hurt themselves in any way. I call that ‘moral courage.’”

How do you build such team trust?

Team-based trust must start with you. It requires the time and space for team-relationship building. It requires the skills to manage task conflict, minimize relationship conflict, and to know the difference between the two. When these are in place, it is possible to have open and honest dialogue about the level of trust present on the team—and what can happen to increase it. Developing a culture for rigorous debate and a “sparring culture” within an operating climate of trust will help protect the quality of your team’s decision making from the dangers of “groupthink.”

Let me share with you a true account of a global Fortune 50 company that reorganized their most senior SLT to reflect their growth in the global market.

The actual reorganization was relatively straightforward and implemented quickly. However, despite a solid structure, clear decision rights, and the right incentives, it soon became apparent that the new organizational structure was not operating as intended. Why was this? It came down to two interrelated root causes:

1. Although everyone on the strategic leadership team understood the changes made to the organizational structure, there was an undefined range of perspectives on how it was supposed to operate, many in conflict with one another.

2. Although the executives now needed to engage in joint decision-making and lead as a team, they had not yet developed the trust, empathy, and the capacity for authentic dialogue in which opposing views on an issue or decision are expressed and debated in the interest of serving the needs of the business.

This group of seven executives sequestered themselves in a remote oceanside hotel for 2 full days. In response to the first root cause, John (pseudonym--the leader) opened the meeting by explaining that this offsite was all about accelerating the shift from an autonomous team model to an interdependent team model. Through their dialogue, the team finally and fully internalized why the change was so essential. With their hearts and minds more committed to the change, they were ready to move to the next step 

The second issue was building trust-based relationships. Through a highly structured, highly facilitated dialogue, they began to build that trust as a team. These executives engaged in honest and productive conversations about the current levels of trust within their relationships and what steps to take to improve them.

The team held highly structured one-on-one “trust building” conversations. Typical exchanges went something like this: One leader would say to another, “My current level of trust for you is (a number between 1 and 10.) What makes it that high is (the things that create trust.) What keeps it from being higher is (the things that get in the way of trust.) What I will do to build trust between us is (offer.) What I ask of you is (request.)”

For example, Karen said to Sanjay, “My current level of trust for you is a 6. What makes it that high is that you’re incredibly capable and I know you will do your job with excellence. What keeps it from being higher is that I’m afraid our motives are not aligned. You’re rewarded for cutting costs, but I manage a high-growth, high-cost market and if you cut my budget too much, I won’t be able to serve my region. What I will do to build trust between us is schedule regular calls between your team and mine to share the specific details about our market requirements and the resources necessary to meet them. What I ask of you is that you talk to me before bringing a budget proposal forward that includes any significant cuts to my budget.”

These conversations were very difficult because of the risk initially perceived by team members. Conducted at the conclusion of the 2-day offsite, the setting for these conversations was safe, private, and inspiring.

These conversations were a turning point for the team. Though they were only at the beginning, they set the stage for the team to become an interdependent, global team. A team that went on to execute the new strategy with excellence. In each subsequent year, both their gross margin and their customer satisfaction ratings increased.

Leading SLTs is one of the most challenging tasks you will have in your career, and, when successfully achieved, the most rewarding.

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