2x
more financial performance with aligned, high-performing executive teams.
21%
higher profitability for teams in top quartile of engagement
75%
of cross-functional teams are dysfunctional
Trusted by companies like
Strong Individual Leaders. Underperforming Leadership Teams.
Your top team challenges aren't about individual capability, they're about how capable leaders work together.
Slow, over-democratic decision-making – Consensus becomes paralysis while strategic opportunities pass
Avoidance of productive conflict – Politeness replaces challenge. Critical tensions fester beneath the surface
Functional silos over enterprise thinking – "My team" takes priority over "our business" at every turn
Tensions spilling into the organisation – Misalignment at the top cascades down, creating confusion and duplication
Why Most Top Team Interventions Don't Stick
❌ Jump straight to solutions without diagnosis
❌ Focus on relationships, not results
❌ Avoid power and authority dynamics
❌ Ignore the team above (CEO/board)
❌ Too workshop-heavy, too event-based
❌ Treat senior leaders like middle managers
If the top team isn't aligned, transformations stall and the organisation cannot execute change. The dysfunction cascades, multiplies, and compounds at every level below.
Lack of collective accountability – Individual leaders deliver, but shared commitments slip
The Esendia Top Team Effectiveness Framework
A systemic approach for C-suite and C-1 teams navigating strategic complexity
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Insight & Alignment
Tailored team diagnostics, 360 feedback, psychometrics, and custom leadership behaviours framework aligned to strategy
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Team Effectiveness Sessions
Structured workshops that clarify purpose, establish decision norms, build conflict capability, and address interdependencies
Discovery & Diagnosis
Confidential 1:1 discovery with each team member, CEO alignment, strategy review, and identification of systemic blockers
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Coached Team Meetings
Real-time coaching during actual leadership meetings with live facilitation, reflection on real decisions, and immediate feedback
Individual Coaching
Personal shifts that unlock collective performance by addressing individual impact on team dynamics and blind spots
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Senior Team Alignment
Ensuring the team above enables success by clarifying expectations, addressing micromanagement, and creating empowered space
In practice this means: Esendia helps C-suite and C-1 teams move from siloed, function-led leadership to unified enterprise decision-making. Through diagnostic-first insight, real-work coaching and structured team interventions, we enable senior teams to think together, decide faster and execute strategy with shared accountability.
The Esendia Difference
We treat the top team as a strategic leadership system, not just a group needing better relationships. Our approach addresses both the human dynamics and the structural conditions that enable high performance.
What Changes in Practice
Observable behavioural transformations we achieve with C-suite and C-1 teams
Functional Silos → Enterprise Thinking
Leaders prioritise enterprise outcomes over departmental wins
Polite Avoidance → Constructive Challenge
Team members openly challenge each other's thinking safely
Guarded Conversations → Trust-Based Dialogue
Leaders admit mistakes, ask for help, and show vulnerability safely
Slow Decisions → Empowered, Decisive Action
Teams make decisions confidently without waiting for senior sign-off, decisions stick and move forward
Individual Accountability → Collective Ownership
The team holds each other accountable without prompting from above
Ambiguous Authority → Clear Decision Rights
Everyone knows who decides what, reducing escalation and rework
"We needed someone to challenge our thinking who wasn't buried in the detail, someone who had an objective viewpoint. 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."
— Katherine Allison, Chief People Officer, Moore Barlow
Moore Barlow: Building High Performance Through Merger Integration
Leading UK law firm builds unified leadership team during pandemic and major merger
The Challenge
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New leadership team formed during pandemic
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Members focused on own teams, not collective
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Overwhelming priorities with unclear focus
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Need to build trust and accountability quickly
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Risk of "nice conversations" without outcomes
The Esendia Approach
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Targeted psychometrics with 1:1 debriefs
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Identified gaps in collective team profile
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Expert facilitation with real-time adaptation
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Challenged thinking as objective outsider
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Generous knowledge transfer for ongoing use
Observable Changes
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Clearer strategic focus and prioritisation
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More effective meetings with outcomes
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Stronger peer accountability for interdependencies
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Enhanced self-awareness of strengths and blind spots
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Continued use of tools months after engagement
The Bottom-Line Impact
Research-backed evidence of top team effectiveness ROI
2.3x
Executive teams with strong alignment are more likely to outperform peers on revenue growth
21%
Higher profitability for teams in the top quartile of engagement
Psychological safety, a core outcome of our work, is the strongest predictor of team performance.
How to Work With Esendia
Three ways to build top team effectiveness
Design & Deliver Partnership
We design and deliver your full programme: expert diagnostics, senior-level facilitation, individual coaching, coached team meetings, and follow-through.
✓ Teams needing immediate impact
✓ Limited internal facilitation capacity
✓ Critical moments (mergers, transformations)
Popular
All routes leverage the same proven methodology, the difference is who leads the work and how quickly you need results.
FAQ
What do you mean by “top team effectiveness”?
Top team effectiveness refers to how well a senior leadership team works together as a collective enterprise team, making decisions, resolving tension, and aligning around shared priorities — rather than operating as a group of high-performing individuals.
Is this team coaching or leadership development?
It goes beyond traditional team coaching. Esendia treats the top team as a strategic leadership system, combining diagnostics, live decision coaching, and real-world facilitation to improve how the team leads the organisation, not just how they relate to each other.
Who is this work designed for?
This work is designed for C-suite and C-1 teams navigating complexity, transformation, mergers, or growth, where misalignment at the top slows execution and creates confusion across the organisation.
How is this different from off-site workshops?
Workshops are part of our approach, but they're a small fraction of the work. We start with diagnostics to understand how the team really functions, then look at the systems and structures that shape their effectiveness. Unlike one-off off-sites, Esendia works with teams in real time, observing live meetings, coaching real decisions, and embedding new behaviors into everyday leadership practice. The focus is on sustained, systemic change that sticks, not a workshop moment that fades.
How long does it take to see impact?
Most teams see noticeable shifts in decision quality, trust and accountability within six months. Sustainable change comes from ongoing practice, coached application and reinforcement rather than single events.