Are you a senior leadership team, or a team of senior leaders?

You can bring highly capable leaders together, and still not have a highly effective senior leadership team.

I see this regularly in my work as a team coach. Each person may lead their own area well, yet when priorities compete or decisions cross functions, the team struggles to act collectively.

The senior team is working, but how well is it leading the whole organisation?

Something is getting in the way.

Important decisions take too long. The same issues return to the agenda. Leaders protect the priorities of their own function, while responsibility for the whole organisation becomes less clear.

The team is working, but the business isn’t performing as well as it could.

 Consider your own senior team:

What does the organisation need from you collectively that no individual leader can provide?

How much meeting time is spent sharing functional updates rather than addressing shared priorities?

Where does responsibility sit when an issue crosses several functions?

What happens when people disagree?

Why can collective leadership be difficult?

Every senior leader holds two roles.

You lead your own function, with its targets, people and pressures. You are also a member of the senior team, collectively responsible for the success of the wider organisation.

Those responsibilities don’t always align neatly.

Under pressure, attention naturally returns to the area you know best and can influence most directly. Meetings become a place to report activity, negotiate resources or resolve immediate problems.

In many of the scientific and technical organisations I work with, strong specialist expertise can deepen this pattern. Each leader brings an important professional perspective, but the organisation needs those different perspectives to inform one another, not compete for priority or remain separate.

When functions become too inward-looking, this can develop into silo working.

Without enough attention to collective leadership, the Chief Executive or MD can become the person expected to connect everything, resolve disagreements and make decisions that should belong to the team.

How can you recognise when a senior leadership team is stuck?

You may notice:

• The same issues returning without lasting resolution

• Decisions being revisited because commitment was never genuine

• Important conversations taking place outside meetings

• Functional priorities taking precedence over organisational priorities

• Disagreement being avoided, or becoming personal when it does surface

• Too little time spent looking ahead or thinking strategically

• The Chief Executive or MD becoming the main route between functions

None of these necessarily means that you have a failing team. They indicate that the way you work together may no longer meet what the organisation requires or operating as effectively as it could.

If important discussions repeatedly happen outside the formal meeting, you may also find What is your leadership team not talking about? useful.

What does senior leadership team coaching offer?

Team coaching gives you space to examine not only what you are working on, but how you work together.

It isn’t simply an away day, and it doesn’t begin from the assumption that something is broken. It recognises we can get stuck. It helps the team work on real organisational challenges while noticing the behaviours, habits and relationships influencing progress.

This might involve:

• Clarifying your shared purpose and priorities

• Exploring how decisions are made and who holds responsibility

• Identifying patterns that repeatedly slow progress

• Creating more open and constructive challenge

• Strengthening trust across different roles and functions

• Agreeing how you will hold one another accountable

• Turning insight into practical changes that continue beyond the session

Working with a senior team involves creating the conditions for honest discussion while also challenging the team to take collective ownership. Different perspectives remain valuable, but they become part of a shared conversation about what the organisation needs.

The aim isn’t agreement on everything. Effective teams can question, disagree and test ideas without weakening trust. They make clear decisions and remain collectively committed once those decisions have been made.

A strong senior team is more than a meeting of functional leaders. It provides direction, brings different perspectives together and takes shared responsibility for the whole organisation.

What could your organisation achieve if your senior team led more collectively?

If your senior team would benefit from stronger alignment, clearer accountability and more constructive challenge, explore our Senior Team Development and Coaching work, or contact me to discuss what would help your team.

Kate Jennings