When Top Teams Stumble: What You Can Do For Team Effectiveness
- Jaya kashyap
- Aug 21
- 10 min read
The 5 Habits of Effective Executive Teams
Executive teams hold disproportionate power over the success—or failure—of their organisations. They set strategy, control resources, and shape the culture that cascades through every level of the business. When a top team is aligned, focused, and cohesive, the organisation benefits from faster decision-making, stronger execution, and a healthier workplace culture.
But what happens when they stumble?
Executive teams hold disproportionate power over the success—or failure—of their organisations. They set strategy, allocate resources, and shape the culture that cascades through every level of the business. When a top team is aligned, focused, and cohesive, the organisation benefits from faster decision-making, stronger execution, and a healthier workplace culture.
But even the most talented executives can fall into patterns that quietly undermine performance. Sometimes it’s subtle: meetings that feel endless but deliver little clarity, decisions that are revisited repeatedly, or leaders who appear aligned in public but hold back in private. Other times, the cracks are obvious: competing priorities, toxic conflicts, or whole functions moving in different directions.
The costs are high. Poorly functioning executive teams create ripples across the organisation, leading to disengaged employees, slower innovation, and weaker business results. Research by Harvard Business Review shows that 75% of cross-functional teams are dysfunctional, highlighting how alignment at the top is critical (HBR, 2015) [1]. Similarly, Google’s Project Aristotle found that psychological safety—the feeling that team members can take risks without fear—is the most important factor in team effectiveness (Rozovsky, 2015) [2].
The good news? These patterns can be diagnosed and addressed. The key lies in habits: specific, repeatable behaviours that distinguish effective executive teams from those that merely shttps://www.esendia.com/top-team-effectivenessurvive.
The Five Habits of Effective Executive Teams
1. Building Deep, Vulnerability-Based Trust
Trust is often misunderstood. Many executive teams believe they trust one another because they have worked together for years or respect each other’s experience. True effectiveness requires vulnerability-based trust: the ability to admit mistakes, ask for help, and share challenges without fear of losing face.
Teams with high trust are significantly more productive. Harvard Business Review notes that low-trust teams experience up to 50% more turnover and higher stress levels (HBR, 2015)[1]. Similarly, Project Aristotle identified psychological safety as the single most important factor in effective teams (Rozovsky, 2015) [2].
To build this trust, create safe spaces for leaders to share strengths, challenges, and mistakes without fear of judgment. Diagnostics, such as personality or work-style assessments, help uncover individual preferences and potential friction points. Facilitated team sessions and coaching provide structured time to discuss these insights, align expectations, and agree on practical ways of working together.
How to develop this?
Building this type of trust takes deliberate, structured effort. It starts with creating safe spaces where leaders can openly share strengths, areas for development, and challenges without fear of judgment. Tools like personality or work-style diagnostics help identify where each leader excels, where they may struggle, and how they prefer to work. Sharing these insights increases mutual respect, improves understanding, and makes it easier for leaders to ask for and offer support when needed.
Facilitated team sessions and leadership coaching take this a step further, providing a structured environment for leaders to discuss their preferences, align expectations, and agree on ways of working as a team.
These sessions can define practical behaviors such as how to give constructive feedback, how to request help, and how to create accountability while maintaining trust. Over time, these practices embed vulnerability-based trust, enabling faster decision-making, more candid conversations, and stronger team cohesion.
2. Embracing Productive Conflict Instead of Polite Agreement for Team Effectiveness
Many executive teams confuse politeness with alignment. Meetings may be calm, with little overt disagreement, but below the surface, real issues remain unspoken. These “polite” teams are often the most dangerous because they create the illusion of alignment when, in reality, competing agendas still drive decisions after the meeting ends.
High-performing teams embrace productive conflict: robust, respectful debate focused on ideas, strategies, and risks not personalities. Conflict avoidance might feel easier in the moment, but it’s costly in the long run, leading to poorer decisions and slower execution.
Patrick Lencioni [3], author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, describes this dynamic as one of the most common and damaging issues at senior levels. Teams that master constructive conflict are more agile and resilient because they surface tough topics early, consider diverse perspectives, and fully commit to their decisions afterwards.
Consider a technology scale-up preparing for a major market expansion. Initially, its senior team avoided heated debates over product priorities, opting for “smooth” meetings. The result was an overloaded strategy and missed launch deadlines. After working on conflict capability, meetings shifted: leaders debated vigorously, questioned assumptions, and focused resources on fewer, higher-impact initiatives—improving delivery speed by 30%.
How to develop this?
Developing readiness for productive conflict can be fostered once teams have already started building trust and enhancing overall team effectiveness. A key approach is exploring personal conflict styles and tendencies toward conflict avoidance. In safe, facilitated environments, leaders can be invited to reflect on how conflict was handled in their families or formative experiences, and what conflict personally represents to them.
Because conflict behaviors often stem from early life experiences, one-to-one coaching can be particularly valuable in helping leaders recognize patterns and develop more constructive responses. At the team level, when open conflict or hostility exists, team coaching can help identify unproductive dynamics during difficult conversations and guide the group toward more effective ways of managing disagreements. Over time, this structured approach to conflict fosters candid dialogue, stronger collaboration, and better decision-making under pressure.
3. Making Clear, Committed Decisions That Stick
Some top teams spend significant time discussing priorities but fail to make clear decisions or, worse, make them only to see them unravel later. This lack of clarity creates organisational confusion: middle managers receive mixed signals, and employees become frustrated when priorities constantly shift.
High-performing teams make decisions with clarity and confidence. Research shows that effective teams spend 40% less time revisiting the same issues repeatedly (Belbin, 1981).[4]
Effective executive teams make decisions that are explicit and final, with full commitment from every member even those who initially disagreed. This does not mean suppressing dissent, but rather working through it until alignment is achieved. Once a decision is made, the team speaks with one voice.
In one healthcare organisation, a lack of decision clarity around digital transformation left staff paralysed: IT believed one approach had been approved, while operations thought another direction was agreed. A team effectiveness reset—including decision protocols and clear ownership rules restored clarity, halving project delays within three months.
(For practical steps to build these skills at the top, see Team Effectiveness at the Top: Strengthening Both the Executive Team and the Second Line).
How to develop this?
Developing clear and effective decision-making within executive teams requires several critical elements:
Defined roles and shared purpose: Each team member should have clarity on their responsibilities, while the team as a whole must understand its overarching purpose. Senior leadership plays a key role in setting this direction and ensuring alignment with organizational objectives.
A clear team charter: Establishing documented ways of working, decision-making protocols, and escalation paths provides a shared reference point. A team charter reduces ambiguity, prevents overlap, and streamlines decision-making discussions.
Empowerment to act: Leaders must have the authority and confidence to make decisions without undue interference, micromanagement, or “sign-off” from senior leadership. Empowered teams act faster, take ownership, and drive accountability across the organization.
Comfort with risk: Decision-making often involves uncertainty and risk, which not all leaders handle equally well. One-to-one coaching can help individuals understand the roots of their hesitation, weigh trade-offs, and develop strategies to make timely decisions. While this is an individual-level intervention, it strengthens overall team effectiveness by enabling more consistent, decisive action.
4. Holding Each Other Accountable
Accountability starts with clear goals and shared ownership. Gallup research shows that highly accountable teams are up to 50% more likely to meet performance targets (Gallup, 2017).[5]
Accountability often flows one way in executive teams, upwards to the CEO or board. But when senior leaders hold one another accountable, peer-to-peer, performance and cultural alignment improve dramatically.
Peer accountability is not about blame; it’s about collective responsibility. For example, when one leader consistently misses commitments, peer accountability means addressing the issue directly rather than quietly compensating for it or escalating to the CEO.
At Esendia, we see time and again that when top teams adopt peer accountability habits, culture changes across the organisation. Teams below mirror what they see: collaboration improves, ownership deepens, and performance conversations become more honest and frequent.
One global consumer goods company, after introducing structured peer accountability processes, reported not just improved executive alignment but a 20% increase in engagement scores across their second-line leaders—proof of how behaviour at the top cascades down.
How to develop this?
Accountability in executive teams begins with clear goals and a well-defined mission. Leaders must understand precisely what the team is responsible for delivering, as this clarity forms the foundation of any performance-driven approach.
Leadership modeling is critical: When the CEO explicitly expects accountability, it sets the tone for the team. Teams whose leaders emphasize performance and responsibility are far more likely to adopt a culture of accountability themselves, reinforcing consistent standards across the organization.
Accountability thrives on trust and support: Clear expectations must be linked to vulnerability-based trust, enabling leaders to ask for help when needed without fear of judgment. Accountability is not about blame, it’s about shared responsibility and mutual support.
Connection to enterprise results: True accountability also requires leaders to look beyond their own functions and consider the impact of their decisions on the wider organization. Every leader’s contribution should align with broader business outcomes, ensuring that accountability drives both individual performance and enterprise-wide success.
5. Focusing on Enterprise-Wide Results
Top teams must think beyond their function. Teams that adopt an enterprise mindset are 3x more likely to engage in cross-functional collaboration, which drives innovation and growth (HBR, 2016).[6]
Perhaps the hardest habit for executives is shifting from a functional mindset to an enterprise-first mindset. Many leaders ascend by excelling within their own domain, but at the top level, the priority is organisational performance as a whole.
Executive teams that thrive embrace this shift. They make resource decisions based on what’s best for the enterprise, not just their department. They share ownership for strategic outcomes, not just their function’s KPIs.
In one professional law services firm, senior partners were rewarded largely on individual revenue generation, creating silos and competition that undermined client experience. A redesigned reward structure combined with a team development programme shifted focus to enterprise metrics like client satisfaction and overall profitability. Within a year, collaboration improved, margins grew, and client NPS rose significantly.
How to develop this?
Enterprise-wide thinking can be fostered through several deliberate actions. First, setting enterprise-level targets and giving each team member an official stake in the success of the entire organization encourages leaders to act beyond their individual functions. Measuring performance against these enterprise-level results—not just business unit outcomes sends a strong signal and creates a tangible incentive to think and act as an enterprise-wide leader.
Second, role modeling by the CEO and senior leadership is a powerful accelerator. When top leaders visibly embrace “one company” values and demonstrate collaboration across functions, it reinforces desired behaviors and strengthens a culture where enterprise thinking is the norm, not the exception.
Case Study: Moore Barlow – Using Psychology and Expert Facilitation to Build a High-Performing Leadership Team
The Challenge Moore Barlow, a law firm with six offices across South-East England, had just completed a major merger in May 2020. One month later, Katherine Allison joined as Chief People Officer, alongside several new leadership appointments in sales, marketing, IT, and finance.
Joining a newly expanded team during a pandemic made forming strong working relationships particularly challenging. The team’s first in-person meeting wasn’t until December 2020. Up to that point, leaders had been focused on their individual teams, leaving little opportunity to develop cohesion or shared purpose. Katherine recognised that accelerating team alignment was crucial to building a high-performing leadership team.
The Solution Katherine engaged Esendia (formerly Talupp) and worked with organisational psychologist and facilitator, Ines Wichert, to maximise the value of the team’s first in-person session.
Before the meeting, Ines recommended a series of psychometric assessments for the leadership team. These assessments helped team members understand their individual strengths, working styles, and potential blind spots. Katherine explains:
“Ines not only guided us through which psychometrics would be most beneficial, she also talked through the results with each person and helped us understand what they meant for the group. Importantly, she flagged the gaps that our collective profiles revealed.”
During the session, Ines used her facilitation expertise to help the team move beyond their day-to-day priorities. Leaders clarified their vision, prioritised key deliverables, and explored interdependencies across functions.
Katherine recalls:
“Each of us came to the session with a big list of things to do—it was overwhelming. Ines helped us focus on what mattered most, uncover blockers and enablers, and address interdependencies for the first time as a team.”
Ines’ objective perspective kept the team on track, helping them avoid getting lost in operational minutiae while fostering open discussion and collaboration.
The Results The facilitation and diagnostics delivered far more than Katherine had anticipated. By the end of the session, the leadership team had:
A shared understanding of each other’s strengths and working styles
Clearer priorities and a practical plan for immediate and mid-term goals
Improved collaboration and communication across functions
Enhanced confidence in tackling interdependencies and complex challenges
Katherine credits the combination of psychometric insights, expert facilitation, and structured reflection with accelerating the team’s development and laying the foundation for long-term high performance.
Read full story: https://www.esendia.com/moore-barlow-case-study
Why This Matters for the Entire Organization
Executive teams are more than a group of senior leaders—they are the engine that drives the entire organization’s performance and culture. The behaviours they model—trust, healthy conflict, clear decision-making, accountability, and enterprise-wide thinking—ripple throughout every level of the business, shaping how managers lead, how employees collaborate, and how the organization responds to change.
When the top team is misaligned or dysfunctional, the consequences are felt far beyond the boardroom. Misaligned priorities, slow decisions, inconsistent messaging, and disengaged employees are often direct reflections of the behaviours (or lack thereof) at the top.
For instance:
Gallup reports that highly engaged teams—driven by effective leadership—experience 21% higher profitability and 17% higher productivity (Gallup State of the Global Workplace, 2023).
Harvard Business Review highlights that executive teams that foster trust and accountability see significant improvements in decision-making speed and organizational alignment (HBR: The Secrets of Great Teamwork).
In today’s fast-moving environment—characterized by digital disruption, hybrid work, and constant transformation—the stakes are higher than ever. Executive team effectiveness is not just a “nice-to-have” for the leaders themselves; it is a strategic imperative. Organizations that invest in developing their top teams see benefits that extend across the enterprise: faster execution, stronger innovation, higher employee engagement, and a culture resilient enough to thrive through change.
What You Can Do
If your top team feels stuck, misaligned, or underperforming, it’s not just the team—it affects the entire organization. The good news is that change is possible, but it starts with diagnosis.
Ask the right questions:
Are decisions slow, frequently revisited, or unclear?
Do leaders genuinely debate ideas, or default to polite agreement?
Is accountability peer-to-peer, or only top-down?
Are enterprise goals and cross-functional collaboration influencing daily priorities—or being ignored?
Answering these questions requires rigorous diagnostics. Our Top Team Effectiveness solutions use proven tools ranging from structured assessments of team dynamics, leadership surveys, and 360-degree feedback to personality and conflict-style diagnostics—to identify what’s really holding the team back.
The best interventions are tailored: they combine team coaching, facilitated workshops, and one-to-one leadership coaching with structural interventions, such as redefining roles, clarifying team purpose, aligning the senior team with organizational vision, and optimizing performance management approaches.
We understand what works because we’ve seen it in action. Teams that engage in these interventions don’t just perform better, they thrive. Clearer actions, stronger alignment, and measurable results become visible almost immediately, creating momentum that cascades across the organization.
Ready to transform your executive team?
Book a call with our experts today and start the journey toward stronger performance, alignment, and enterprise-wide impact.
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