Why leadership teams are one of the most underdeveloped performance levers
What is the missed opportunity in leadership teams?
Leadership and management teams often function as a group of individuals. Each person has their own responsibilities to deliver, their KPIs, and their own teams. Leaders and managers are also part of more than one team. They lead their own teams, while simultaneously being part of a peer leadership team.
What is often overlooked is how this peer team functions together.
When working one to one with coachees, a frequent theme that comes to the table is their relationships with peers. It is not uncommon for this to be a second or third coaching goal, following an initial focus on the performance and wellbeing of their team, and then themselves. This is where the missed opportunity lies.
Companies with aligned, effective top teams are almost twice as likely to achieve above median financial performance (McKinsey & Company Top Team Research, 2025).
As a coach, I notice that when we take the time to focus on peer relationships, this is when greater collaboration, support, improved communication, and joint problem-solving begin to emerge. Leaders start to feel less isolated. They become better informed about what is happening elsewhere in the organisation and more aware of where proactive communication and connection are needed.
What is the impact of a poorly connected, dysfunctional leadership team?
Last year, a leader I coach reflected on the roll-out of a new organisation-wide policy they had led. It had been successful in some areas but had limited impact in others. They believed they had consulted widely and tested sufficiently before implementation, but they were becoming aware that teams in one particular part of the organisation were struggling to change.
On further investigation, feedback revealed that the policy was less workable in that context due to differences in the customer demographic they served, compared to most other teams. This insight came from a small number of peers working in that context, who had not been actively involved in the early consultation and design phase. This had not been deliberate, but was the result of limited time and a lack of proactive attention to ensuring all contexts were represented.
The learning for this leader centred on the importance of their peer relationships. Being better informed and more connected would have enabled stronger insight and better organisational wide design decisions. This leader works in an organisation where senior leadership teams tend to operate as a collection of individuals rather than as a true team.
When leadership teams’ function in this way, I often observe competition, poor communication, suspicion, defensive behaviours, empire building, competition for resources, knowledge being withheld, ego driven dynamics, limited feedback or challenge, and in some cases, leaders not speaking to one another at all. I have coached teams who are deeply embedded in this space of poor collective performance.
What helps leadership teams function better?
McKinsey & Company’s evidence-based research, drawing on 14 annual literature reviews and more than 140 published studies, identified four core factors that explain 69 to 76 percent of the difference between low and high performing teams:
- Configuration – clear roles and a strong mix of perspectives
- Alignment – clarity of direction and commitment to it
- Execution – how effectively the team carries out its work
- Renewal – positive energy and long-term sustainability
In my experience, the key is creating space for the real issues to come to the table. Trust begins to rebuild when people are helped to see each other as human beings, to recognise shared values and a common purpose, after all, they work in the same organisation.
Once honest truths have been aired, tears shed, and apologies and forgiveness offered, teams often rediscover a sense of reconnection and even joy in working alongside colleagues they genuinely want to collaborate with.
This work is not easy. As a coach, I step into many roles: facilitator, arbitrator, mediator, counsellor, challenger, and the person holding individuals to account. One team described me as “kind with an inner steel”, enabling them to bring anything into the team coaching space, confident it would be treated with respect, non-judgementally, and with enough structure to help them process, listen, and move into action.
As the coach leading this work, I am not the person with the answers. Every individual in the team already holds them. My role, which is not for the faint hearted, is to draw those answers out using a range of questions, tools, techniques, and approaches, and to support the team in rebuilding how they work together.
What are the benefits of a strongly connected, well-functioning leadership team?
When leadership and management teams’ function from a place of positive connection, it is noticeable that:
- They trust each other, enabling openness, honesty, feedback, and mutual respect
- They are aligned on where they are heading and how each person contributes
- They communicate more effectively, including about difficult issues
- They recognise when they are going off track and can self-correct through dialogue
- They proactively share knowledge, information, insights, and resources
This interconnectivity has a wider impact on their teams. People experience greater consistency in leadership behaviour, clearer decision making, and a stronger sense of direction. This builds confidence in leadership.
A study by Harvard Business Review, examining 1,250 executive teams, found a clear correlation between company performance, including revenue, profitability, and shareholder return, and strong executive team effectiveness. However, only 20 percent of executive teams were classified as high performing. This represents an 80 percent underperformance rate at the most critical level of leadership.
At Co Creation, we work with leadership and management teams using a team coaching approach to help them move through challenge and conflict and find more effective ways of working together. We focus on building shared purpose, bringing values into collective understanding, strengthening leadership behaviours, and improving team climate. Central to this work is rebuilding trust and human connection within the leadership or management team itself.
I’d invite you to pause for a moment and consider your own leadership team.
- Where is there genuine alignment?
- Where are conversations being avoided?
- Where could stronger peer connection unlock better organisational decisions?
What happens between leaders shapes what happens across the whole organisation.
“Navigating What Really Drives Leadership Team Performance”
26 March @ 9:30 am – 11:00 am
In our March online interactive session, we will explore the dynamics that most often hold senior teams back and the practical shifts that help them move forward.
Expect evidence.
Real examples. And space to think about your own context.
If you are serious about turning your leadership team into a true performance advantage, we would love you to join us.
Register here:
https://co-creation.group/event/navigating-what-really-drives-leadership-team-performance/