Succeeding at Work

How to Build Great Leadership Teams as a CEO

Every organization has a person that drives the overall success of the organization. This driving force is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO); they are the highest-ranking individual in the organization. The Chief Executive Officer is responsible for overseeing the organization's future and making top-level decisions. They lead the organization's executives to achieve the company's overall goals in the short and long term.  One of the indices of the company's success lies in it'sits leadership teams, and the CEO is responsible for building this. 

What are leadership teams?

Leadership teams, otherwise called the company's senior management team, work directly with the CEO to set clear strategies and inspire junior teams and individual staff to achieve organizational success. They are the epitome of other units of the organization. For instance, a chief marketing officer oversees the marketing team; they mostly take responsibility for the team's challenges and are often ambassadors of the company.

Why are leadership teams Important?

Senior leadership teams are essential team members because they motivate teams to attain the company's overall goals. They use their functional, managerial, and enterprise expertise to achieve organizational success.

To elaborate, leadership teams can make or mar the success of an organization such that their inefficiency can bring woes to the company. But when not well nurtured, it can cause a lot of harm to the organization. Therefore, the CEO is in the best position to develop the leadership teams/senior executives.

How CEOs can build Leadership Teams      

Bringing together a group of c-level executives or senior executives doesn’t necessarily equate to a great leadership team; it often means you are bringing together experts in their professional fields. CEOs often misconstrue a group of senior executives as leadership teams; it goes beyond bringing together a group of senior executives. It is more about building a team that collaborates to achieve a common goal and inspiring them to drive results, not expecting them to achieve results. Great leadership teams never succeed by accident; leadership teams can actively become organizational impediments without nurturing.

In the real sense, it takes several initiatives for the CEOs to build a solid leadership team, and here are some of the best ways to build successful leadership teams:

  • Build a Collaborative Team

The wrong way to build leadership is to bring executives into the room and discuss the company's goals and visions because this will limit the creative and innovative sense of the executive. But employing a collaborative, conversational, and diverse approach allows for a free sense of creativity, which would enhance their innovative approach to business. It would encourage diverse thoughts and styles that can birth the next best initiative for the company.

 A collaborative team always wins because it builds trust among team members, enabling the team to achieve the common goal; when one team member fails, it is the team's failure, and as such, they can trust each other to fix the situation. But an individual approach breeds competition, and then we all know this isn't nice for business. CEOs should build an environment where it is not about the failure or success of an executive but the overall success and achievement of leadership teams. Remember the popular saying, "none of us is as smart as all of us." 

Pro Tip: Employ a confidence approach; this means teams should know that the company's future lies on their coordinated effort and ideas and that the CEO is confident in their collective submissions

  • Imbibe an Enterprise Mindset instead of a Functional Mindset

CEOs should ensure that senior leaders develop a mindset where their actions and responsibilities gear toward enterprise success rather than function success. In the Harvard Business Review, Manika Gandhi explained that “an enterprise mindset enables leaders to think like the owner of an organization." This mindset enables the leadership team to think beyond their functional expertise. To elaborate, marketing teams shouldn't aim to achieve marketing success but think of their marketing strategies as a tool for attaining enterprise success. 

In building leadership teams, CEOs should empower leaders to develop a mindset focused on a common goal: enterprise success. They should build cross-functional teams where marketing and operation can learn from finance and vice versa- it helps units consider the organization's success holistically when making decisions.

  • Teach every Leader to think like a CEO

CEOS are the drivers of business goals, just as an engine is to a car. They think of the success of a business in the short and long term. CEOs think of the bigger picture and how their decision drives impact outcomes; they possess the ability to articulate visions and inspire followership. CEOs can help senior leaders develop this attribute to lead and motivate team members. Also, it will enable leaders to take ownership of their roles and think of the organization's success at the core of their responsibilities.

  • Encourage Feedback

CEOs should encourage feedback from leadership teams; however not be limited to good feedback. The biggest mistake a CEO can make is to seek only positive feedback, which might be a disaster because when you seek good feedback, how do you understand what to do better? 

  • Strive!

CEOs should strive to create a safe space where team members can share negative feedback and dialogue. A problem shared with the team members birth creative solutions and ideas.

  • GO first!

To get team members to give reviews, CEOs should employ the go first mentality. Share what you failed and succeeded at; this will motivate senior leaders to share feedback.

CEOs must cultivate an attentive environment where all client feedback is well listened to; this will enable CEOs to look out for details and birth ideas.

  • Show Gratitude and Implement

CEOs need to show gratitude for the feedback received and give constructive feedback, especially in situations where the input is negative. Thank leadership teams for their submissions and implement their inputs; this would encourage them to share feedback, seeing as it is a necessary factor in the stability and growth of the company and healthy relationships between the CEO and leadership teams.

  • Manage Conflicts

It is essential to manage conflicts instead of avoiding conflicts, which leads to unnecessary intense emotional turmoil that may not allow leaders to be at their best when contributing to discussions. In an interview with CNBC, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner explained that if he had an issue with staff, either due to performance or other reasons, he calls them, sits down and lists them, and helps teach them how to fix the situation. He explains how he will develop a visual tracker to see how the problem can be controlled or resolved. CEOs can borrow this initiative for conflict resolution, not allowing situations to solve themselves; CEOs need to understand the company needs leadership teams as much as they need the company. 

We can agree that conflict is an unexpected problem that may arise now and then. Developing healthy ways to solve them is key to maintaining healthy relationships within an organization. 

Managing conflicts enables leadership teams to bring their best self to the workplace, which is what every CEO should strive to maintain. Ignoring the elephant in the room will only breed unhealthy rivalries.

  • Help Develop their Strengths

Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, explained that "no matter how brilliant your mind strategy is if you are playing a solo game, you always lose out to a team." He means that an individual who keys into team members' strength has a higher chance of success than when one person is in control.

CEOs can build the strength of leaders by:

  1.  Creating an environment where people can utilize their talents and gifts.

  2. Assisting people to develop and key into their gifts.

  3. Motivating senior leaders to dedicate at least 15% of their time to grow from an area of weakness; help them understand that liability remains a weakness when you do not work on them.

  4. Discussing ideas and innovations with each team member to key into their strengths.

  5. Finding and understanding the strengths of each member by encouraging them to take self-assessment tests

  • Develop a Common Vision

Successful CEOs develop common goals that help navigate the actions and responsibilities of the senior leaders. This responsibility of envisioning a common solely rests on the CEOs because they think beyond today and tomorrow; hence, only CEOs can help senior leaders connect the success of their functional responsibilities to achieving the common goal.

Additionally, when the CEOs educate the senior teams about a shared vision and instill a shared belief, it helps teams put together their resources and expertise to achieve that common goal, thus enabling a successful leadership team.

Creating a sense of shared purpose among leadership teams allows a sense of shared beliefs and vision, promoting alignment between teams to achieve the same goal, ultimately leading to a successful leadership team. Here are ways that CEOs can share a shared vision with senior leaders:

  1. Share the story of the future you envision with senior leaders so that they can key into it.

  2. Stay excited about that common goal so senior leaders might be excited to partake.

  3. Communicate the vision daily and the updates to the vision

  4. Paint a vivid picture of that vision and share the creative process with teams

  5. Help the team understands how their expertise and collective force can help achieve common goals efficiently and effectively.

Bottom Line

Successful CEOs build deep-rooted leadership teams because they drive organizational success internally and externally by motivating team members to develop high morale to achieve success. Suppose CEOs are to build strong leadership teams. In that case, they must do away with the mindset of constantly expecting leaders to know what to do, non-conversational relationships, stale meetings, and zero push for innovation. Instead, they must develop a collaborative mindset where leadership teams are trusted to work to attain organizational success together and achieve the shared vision.