The Best Executive Teams In The World! The 9 Things They Do Better Are:

This is one trait the very best leadership teams ensure. You simply cannot have a great team running and being the industry/market champion with a weak link. From a leadership team effectiveness standpoint, a weak leader in a key executive post can kill greatness -- like a barrel of water unable to contain water at a level higher than its lowest stave. The water run-off presents a huge waste of performance upside!

Jim Collins is absolutely right: "ensure you have the right seats on the bus, and the right people in the right seats." I would add to that an ending phrase "on time." I cannot count the glaring weakness so many CEO's and their leadership teams have in filling holes holes in their executive team fast enough (addressing backfills or organization changes not just well, but fast).  It spells "opportunity cost."  I do not mean mis-hiring in haste, but the edge gained by timely hole-filling is significant. Of course, this principle applies to any team! 

 

Certainly without a clear vision of the CEO not only the leadership team struggles, but so does the entire company. However, vision alone in shaping and mobilizing a great leadership team and company. Delegation is vision's practical partner. Why do I say this? Observation -- working with a number of very capable CEO's whose inability or unwillingness of leveraging him-/herself by delegating due to micro-management, over-control, not entrusting the team to carry their full load disables them and the company from being better than good. So spot-on vision is powerful in combination with unleashing the capacity of the leadership team, which enervates and ripples down and out to the entire organization!

Freezing external variables for a moment, what I have found is an important, underlying driver to sustained, strong profitable growth (rather than lurching, uneven, volatile business performance) is each member of the leadership team growing with the company, or even a tad ahead of it. This is a  nuanced matter. Some executives hit their maximum capacity at $20m or $50m, or $100m or $500m, etc. Those who see it and either accept a middle management role in an enlarging company or move to a company that is within their executive scope do themselves and the company the best. The Peter Principle is relevant here -- that people can rise beyond their ability ultimately to their highest level of incompetence. 

With the great companies, the culture of high performance, openness to criticism, and self-honesty, combined with an alert and faithful CEO, combines to wither keep people growing with the company, altering their role to other than senior leadership, or moving to another company. Done on time, this is a win-win for every party -- the individual (who doesn't gradually fail), the team (who functions in sync), and the company (overall performance.

Here I am referring to some very specific, practical values and behaviors.

Great leadership teams work together exceptionally well. This does not mean "buddy-buddy", but it does mean: 

I have noticed an enormous range of leadership team attitudes toward their people. Some are disappointingly cynical, and they get a lower-notched morale and turnover accordingly. The good teams see the importance of being with and there for their people, communicating and responding to employee needs. Then there are those few great teams that are not jaundiced one bit. Like the great field generals, they see everyone's role as critical. They prefer having a real connection with their people. They are not only respected, but appreciated by employees, and sometimes even loved by them. How could that be? They realize these guys and gals at the top really care. 

They take the time and energy to do what they can to provide a great working environment and experience for people they actually consider teammates. This does not mean everything is always great. Like Roosevelt's fireside chats or Reagan's radio talks, they communicate in ways that pull everyone together in crisis and under fire.

For example, when times are tough, they do not hesitate lowering their salaries when they ask others to sacrifice. They care, and they are there --basic things most leadership teams do not prize, and they pay for it.

The best leadership teams have great "parenting"/shepherding instincts and practices. They not only get leverage coaching and empowerment gives them via responsible delegation, but they see that, with a fast-growing company, leadership development of those following them must be aggressive, intentional, and very practical. I do not often cite companies, but one I must cite as truly global best in class is Stuart C. Irby Company (electrical distribution). Sure, they have grown several hundred percent in the past few years, and become an industry leader. How they have done and do succession planning is inspiring. Without tipping their hand, I can say this: they have reached far down and out in the organization to develop career and succession plans. This enables them to "accordion" their situations to scale with the need. The best leadership teams do this:  they think ahead about bench strength and contingency planning. This is a great example of a leadership team preparing for the future, for their roles to change and elevate, and for their people throughout the organization as well. These are people not holding on to their existing situations in a "scarcity" power-keep mode. They are looking forward, not only for themselves, but for the entire organism to grow in an integrated fashion!

Great leadership do executive blocking and tackling well -- planning, measuring, and tracking. Good teams are organized with efficient planning and implementation processes. Great teams are over-the-top intense and strong in this arena. They hold important, creative, intense, and timely plan updates -- strategic and operational. They are "crazy" about staying fresh, up to date, and as brilliant to see the entire panorama and make the right moves at the right times in the right ways. They are not bureaucrats for numbers, but they figure out what are the most important metrics and measures. Yes, they get around the balance sheet and P&L adeptly, but they determine the right customer and productivity metrics as well. The best of these teams have real-time measurement and tracking systems. Some have next-day P&L's. None of this waiting for accounting month-end close stuff. They not only make Goals, but Action Plans; not only Action Plans, but tracking due dates and holding people accountable to actions' timely and successful completion and inculcation into daily operations. Their intensity in the basics is pervasive! What others manage to just do, they make into an edge-giver!

Much has been appropriately written about being very close to and driven by customer needs. However, this point is very practical. Great leadership teams will have more than their VP of Sales and their CEO caring for the customer. They will broaden and "regularize" wider contact and relationships amongst senior leadership and both customers and prospects. The VP of Manufacturing does not just participate in plant tours, but gets into customer facilities, and so forth. You and I both smile, and even laugh, to think of strange, even frightening this would be for many leaders on many leadership teams. But when your CFO or VP, Marketing, relates well with people and builds credible customer contacts, that is a very powerful plus! The best of the best teams have something remarkable -- they can plan and triage as a team, moving combinations of their members into various customer and contact scenarios. Just consider that advantage when that happens!

Along with Customer bandwidth as mentioned prior, this is the other great External advantage the best leadership teams have. This is not about Planning Process in #7. above, but Plan Content. Sure, everybody adjusts their plans every year operationally and every 1-5 years strategically. I have witnessed that the best teams indeed have that "loose-tight" capability and exercise. They keep everything in their frontal, forward view: strategic and operational spheres, external and internal conditions, and long-range and short-term timeframes. The know when to stay and when to nudge, when to sieze or strike and when to call time out and re-orient. They believe in the continuity of plans and the fluidity of change. Somehow, they take both into account in real time. They are able to get into and stay in the "great leadership team zone" like the best athletes. High speed feels like slow motion, as they take in all meaningful information on the move and execute the right, precision moves adroitly! Yes, great leaders are blessed some by nature, but they nurture the right disciplines to distinguish themselves perennially from the field!