In recent years, organizations' focus on developing well-functioning leadership teams at all levels has increased significantly. Both because there is a general need to increase implementation power, where leadership teams play an important role, but also because leadership teams are a central focal point for strengthening cross-functional collaboration, which is at the top of many organizations' priority list. Leadership teams can and should act as powerhouses for implementation, development and results. Unfortunately, leadership teams can also become black holes that drain an organization's energy, motivation and performance.
Make leadership teams the implementation and development engine
In most organizations, leadership teams should take a more central role in the implementation of the organization's strategic initiatives. If leadership teams are not included and activated in the implementation processes, the implementation rate is likely to be significantly lowered. One of the most important tasks of leadership teams is to bind the organization together and ensure implementation, coordination and collaboration across departments and management levels. And because leadership teams typically represent a unique meeting between two or more levels of management and bring together all the leaders from a given unit, they are particularly well suited to ensure vertical and horizontal cohesion.
Well-functioning leadership teams create three types of results:
- Added value for the organization
- Added value for the management team
- Added value for the individual manager
Added value for the organization
Well-functioning management teams create added value in relation to the organization's core mission. This is primarily done by discussing and making decisions in areas of key importance to the organization's operations and development. Creating added value for the organization is therefore about the ability of the leadership team to contribute more to the optimization of operations, organizational development and future success than the leaders of the leadership team can individually.
Added value for the management team
Well-functioning management teams also create added value through the development of their own functional capacity. Here, a key competence is the leadership team's ability to develop its joint result creation. In other words, well-functioning management teams create added value for themselves by being in a continuous learning process that allows them to continuously become stronger and more results-oriented.
Added value for the individual manager
An often overlooked added value that well-functioning management teams create is to contribute added value for the individual manager in the form of professional and personal development. Well-functioning management teams do this by strengthening the individual manager's motivation, learning and development and by strengthening the manager's ability to create results in their own area of responsibility. Unfortunately, leadership and professional development is often the only thing that is not on the agenda in management team meetings, much to the frustration of the management team members.
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Remember balanced focus
Some organizations and leaders consciously or unconsciously come to focus unilaterally on one type of added value. The problem with this is that the three types of added value are interrelated. The added value for the organization may be perceived as the most important dimension, but it is based on the ability to create added value for the leadership team and the individual leader. If the individual management team member is not thriving, motivated and competent - and therefore successful in running their own department - then the management team has poor conditions to succeed in creating added value for the organization.
Build a management chain of well-functioning management teams
Leadership teams have enormous destructive and productive potential. They can become "black holes" that suck all the energy, efficiency and well-being out of both the leadership team itself and the rest of the organization, but they can also be "guiding stars" for the rest of the organization and powerhouses where employees and leaders find inspiration, motivation and common direction. That's why dysfunctional leadership teams need to be identified and put on the right track as soon as possible.
If organizations are serious about driving results, it's not enough to focus on individual leadership teams. It's necessary to focus on developing a cohesive leadership chain of high-functioning, high-performing leadership teams from top to bottom. Here are five keys to developing a cohesive leadership chain of high-performing leadership teams:
- Build organizational infrastructure, reward systems and culture that support the discipline of setting, running and developing effective leadership teams.
- Clarify expectations for the purpose, tasks and outcomes of leadership teams at different organizational levels.
- Set clear requirements and expectations for team play that support the leadership team's overall performance: Make the right behaviors visible and reward them.
- Establish an open and trust-based feedback culture for continuous leadership team learning: Creating effective leadership teams requires a systematic and focused effort.
- Pay special attention to the senior leadership team: This is the most important and difficult leadership team in the organization, but it pays off for the entire organization to make it function effectively.
Sources
- Bang, H. (2008) Effectiveness in management teams - what is it, & what factors influence it, Journal of the Norwegian Psychological Association
- Bang, H., Midelfart, N., Molly-Søholm, T. & Elmholdt, C. (2015) Effektive ledergrupper - for bedre udvikling, implementering og tværgående sammenhæng, Dansk Psykologisk Forlag
- Elmholdt, C. & Molly-Søholm, T. (2015) Effective leadership teams or 'black holes' from top to front, Ledelses i dag, December, 2015
- Grøn R.T., Elmholdt, C. & Bang, H. (2016) Effective leadership teams - why, what and how?, Business Psychology, no. 3 October
- Grøn, R.T. & Elmholdt, C. (2016a) New interdisciplinary leadership teams - how to make them work, Skolen i morgen, May issue, 2016
- Grøn, R.T. & Elmholdt, C. (2016b) Effektive tværfaglige ledergrupper, Magasinet Plenum, October issue
