When working with your peer leaders sucks
Frank & Eddy Quarterly, Q1 2024
As a leader of a team at a big organization, it was easy to invest all of my energy in that team’s success. And equally easy to look across the screen at my peer leaders with thoughts like “why are you focusing on that?” or “you just don’t get it; you don’t see what I see.” These times it felt like our backs were to one another, one staring at priorities off to the west; another focused on looking at the rising sun. It was comfortable to recede into the day-to-day rhythm of my team. But ironically, the success of my team needed me to do the exact opposite. Just like the old adage, “If it hurts, do it more!”
Many problems we see in organizations can be traced back to the fact that peer leadership teams are not truly collaborative. Leaders are focusing on the teams they lead, not the team they are a part of.
What is a collaborative leadership team?
When we talk about a collaborative team, we mean one that has the following characteristics:
succeeds or fails collectively
each team member holds themselves and each other accountable for delivering specific actions, attitudes and behaviors
is a clearly defined group of people, with the right range of skills & perspectives
is stable in membership, long enough to accomplish a compelling purpose
You might recognize your software development teams in this description – self-organizing, cross-functional, with a defined customer problem to solve. But this description should also apply to your leadership teams.
In a collaborative leadership team leaders have a primary allegiance to their team of peer leaders, their “First Team.” They understand they need to be an equal or greater member of this team in order for the team they lead to thrive (#1 in the image below). This means they are collectively accountable with their peers for the shared leadership of the larger org, as well as representing the interests of the team they lead. When prioritization is needed, the interests of the larger org take precedence. Patrick Lencioni introduced this concept in his book The Advantage (we highly recommend!). Being in multiple teams can be a challenge for a new leader, but it’s immensely rewarding, and results in well-aligned strategic work across the organization.
In contrast, #2 shows a leader more focused on the interests of the team they lead. This results in work silos, competition against other teams, and misaligned work across the organization. Without cultivating a first team mindset, this is a likely default for new leaders.
In #3, the leader is disconnected from their team, and spends the majority of their energy and time on issues and concerns of the organization. This results in a leader gap for the team, with misaligned work within the team and across the organization.
Why become a collaborative leadership team?
Everyone benefits when leaders are tightly aligned to one another:
Small frictions don't get amplified into confusion and swirl by teams below them as they try to make sense of strategic intent in order to collaborate together.
There is more and better coordinated delivery of strategic value, with less waste. Orgs can do more with less.
It’s less lonely at the top. Leaders who have a close and trusted team of their own feel more supported and are more confident, capable, and resilient.
A reduced reliance on the ultimate leader to play decision-maker or give direction means less risk of them becoming a bottleneck for progress on initiatives.
The organization is more flexible and nimble when all leaders are cooperating rather than competing (e.g. for headcount or resources).
Are you wondering how to convince others on your team? Try sending them this post, or Lencioni’s 3 minute video!
How to be a collaborative leadership team
When you’ve committed to being in a collaborative leadership team, what next? Clarify your purpose and build good working rhythms.
Agree on a shared purpose, the compelling reason for this team’s existence. This is not just the organization's purpose, it should reflect the leaders’ collective role as enablers to ensure teams are working together effectively to deliver the goals of the organization.
Define how you will create shared accountability for the results. Who will do what? How will you make decisions together that you can all stand by? How will you decide collective strategy? How will you allot headcount and ensure fair processes? How do you support and learn from each other?
Build trusted relationships that allow frank exchange of ideas and knowledge, as well as feedback and constructive conflict. To engender high trust, a team should be small (3-8 people) and it should be clear who is in the team and who is not.
Regularly meet and share context. This doesn’t mean that everyone knows everything about what is going on in each other's teams. Goals, progress, and other information should be transparent and available. Detailed discussion on specific teams should be done only for constructive critique, to understand strategic variations, and to offer and provide help.
Regularly work together on the larger organizational system e.g. create a long-term organization strategy, manage risk, plan & enable cross-team initiatives, design an effective organizational structure, and ensure relevant processes (recruiting and hiring, managing performance, compensation and rewards and real-time recognition) are in step.
If you need help building your collaborative leadership team, our 1:1 leadership coaching and/or team coaching can help.
Recommended reading: The Advantage, by Patrick Lencioni, 2012; Senior Leadership Teams: What it takes to make them great, by Ruth Wageman et. al., 2008
What’s excited us this q
⏩ Short-form video collab. Together with two of our favorite people, Anna Hedlund & Behnosh Esni, we recorded ”Any thoughts?”, a 5 minute rough’n’ready conversation in which we reason about potentially polarizing perspectives faced by leaders of product and engineering teams. Keep an eye out on LinkedIn for more soon!
💡 Leadership Learning Lab. In January, we kicked off two 6-month Learning Labs, each with nine participants. In one session per month, we’ve been building a community amongst participants, teaching them a concept related to leadership, and helping them practice or deep dive on the concept.
What’s pushed our thinking this q
🤔 Control is an inherent human desire for certainty. But it undermines connection, a fundamental of collaboration. Listen here.
🪿Wild Geese, a poem by Mary Oliver. “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Everyone has their place in the world.