Executive Teams in a Virtual World

Executive leadership teams must conduct their activities as a structured and disciplined team. How well they work together determines the organization’s levels of success. Their actions, reactions, and interactions get amplified throughout the organization.

A fundamental principle for executive leadership teams: Small adjustments at the top can have a massive impact throughout the organization…positive or negative.

It is a natural tendency as organizations grow, the parts grow apart. The current work at home environment makes this even more difficult. The separating begins with the executive leadership team. They get focused on their area and become territorial. Their recognition (and compensation) depends upon it—the negatives of separating increase as they grow apart. The outcome is very separated silos. The separating is fixable and preventable.

The solution begins with the executive leadership team sharing, in a disciplined way, what is going on in their minds with one another. The ongoing discipline of sharing and interacting with each other’s big issues (in bullet point form) helps the team connect at their thinking and emotional level. It doesn’t take a lot of time. Unexpressed thinking often ‘leaks out’ into behaviors that are confusing to others. We often hear, ‘Where did that come from?’, when witnessing a leader react unexpectedly in a normal situation.