Leadership team effectiveness: what makes a leadership team effective?

What is leadership team effectiveness?

Leadership team effectiveness is how well a leadership team serves the organisation, stays able to work together and helps its members grow. These are Hackman's three tests of any team, applied to the team at the top (Haas and Mortensen, 2016). By 2006, team research already spanned more than fifty years and thousands of studies (Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006). Reviews describe a chain: inputs, then the processes and states that carry their effect, then outcomes (Mathieu et al., 2008).

It helps to read a leadership team in four layers: conditions, processes, states and outcomes.

What does an effective leadership team deliver?

Hackman proposed three tests for any team (Haas and Mortensen, 2016). First, does its output satisfy the people who receive it? Second, does the way it works keep it able to work well together? Third, do its members learn and develop through being part of it?

For a leadership team, the people who receive its work are the rest of the organisation. Drath and colleagues argue that leadership shows itself in three outcomes for a group: direction, alignment and commitment (Drath et al., 2008). Direction is shared agreement on what the group is trying to achieve. Alignment is work that is coordinated. Commitment is members' willingness to make the success of the whole a priority, not only their own success.

Put together, these give a leadership team three questions to ask itself. Does the organisation get clear direction, aligned work and commitment from us? Are we still able to work well together? Are we, as individuals, getting better at leading?

Why is a leadership team harder to make effective than other teams?

Katzenbach argued that even in well-run companies, the group at the top seldom works as a real team (Katzenbach, 1997). He gave several reasons. A meaningful collective purpose is hard to define at the top, and goals tend to be broad. Members are often chosen for their position rather than for the skills a shared task needs.

Executives are also used to being accountable for their own units, and mutual accountability can feel foreign. A group run by a single leader is often faster, and it fits the hierarchy. Katzenbach did not conclude that top teams are pointless. His advice was to tell team work from other work, and to handle each in its own way.

Later research points the same way. Wageman, Nunes, Burruss and Hackman studied more than 120 senior teams around the world (Wageman et al., 2008; Coutu, 2009). They describe executives who put their own functions ahead of the team's shared work. In an interview about that research, Hackman said that almost every team believed its membership was clear. Yet when the researchers asked members to describe the team, fewer than 10 per cent agreed on its membership (Coutu, 2009).

Both accounts point to a double role. Each member leads a unit and is judged on it. The leadership team asks them to put the whole organisation first, with only part of their time (Katzenbach, 1997).

What conditions does an effective leadership team need?

Hackman's work on teams names five conditions (Hackman, 2002). They are a real team, a compelling direction, an enabling structure, a supportive organisation and expert coaching. For senior teams, Wageman and colleagues treat three as essential: a real team, a compelling purpose and the right people. Structure, support and coaching then help the team make the most of them (Wageman et al., 2008).

• A real team. Members know who is on the team and who is not. Hackman warned that a very large senior team may be worse than no team at all (Coutu, 2009). His example was one holding all the chief executive's direct reports.
• A clear purpose. The team needs a purpose of its own, not the sum of its members' jobs. Start from the purpose of a leadership team and the issues that need everyone.
• Tasks that need the whole team. Katzenbach's test is a collective work product: a result that draws on members' different skills, which none could produce alone (Katzenbach, 1997).
• The right size and members. Members should bring the skills the shared work needs, not only a senior title. Hackman's rule of thumb was no double digits (Coutu, 2009); see leadership team size.
• Information and support. The team needs data, time and help for its shared work, and coaching aimed at the team as a whole. Hackman reported that coaching individual executives did little to help senior teams perform better (Coutu, 2009).

How does an effective leadership team work together?

Most of a leadership team's shared work happens in meetings, so that is where its processes show. One study combined members' ratings with observers' data from eight top management groups and 56 agenda items (Bang et al., 2010). Goal clarity and focused communication were both linked to higher team effectiveness.

The same study found that flagging an unclear goal helped. Calling out a drifting discussion did not help performance, and it went with poorer relationships.

A broader study videotaped 92 regular team meetings (Kauffeld and Lehmann-Willenbrock, 2012). Teams with more problem-solving talk and action planning were more satisfied with their meetings, and better meetings went with higher team productivity. Criticising and complaining showed negative links that were stronger than the positive ones. For a practical format, see leadership team meeting agenda.

Meetings also need room for people to speak. Bang interviewed 21 executives from seven top teams about why they stayed silent when a meeting lost its way (Bang, 2012). Their silence rested mainly on a belief that speaking up would be seen as negative and bring unwelcome consequences.

Disagree about the work, not about each other

A meta-analysis of 116 studies found that relationship conflict was consistently linked to poorer group outcomes (de Wit et al., 2012). Task conflict was not strongly negative overall, and its link with performance was more positive in top management teams. The detail is in task conflict and relationship conflict.

Act as one team, and keep learning

Researchers call the first of these behavioural integration: how far a top team engages in mutual and collective interaction. A study of 402 firms found that the chief executive, the team and the firm each played a part (Simsek et al., 2005).

Learning is the other habit. In a study of 51 work teams, learning behaviour carried the link between psychological safety and team performance (Edmondson, 1999). Support from the organisation and coaching by the team leader also shaped outcomes.

What role do psychological safety, trust and cohesion play?

These are states, not actions. Shared properties of a team emerge from how members interact, and from selection, socialisation and leadership (Kozlowski and Klein, 2000). A team cannot simply decide to have them. It can shape the conditions and meetings they grow from.

Psychological safety is a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking (Edmondson, 1999). In Edmondson's study it went with more learning behaviour, which in turn went with better performance. See psychological safety in leadership teams.

Trust has a solid record too. Across 112 studies of 7,763 teams, trust among members was positively related to team performance (De Jong et al., 2016). This held even after allowing for past performance. The strength of the link depended on factors such as how interdependent the team's tasks were. More is in how to build trust in a leadership team.

Cohesion matters as well, with a twist. Across studies, it related more strongly to performance measured as behaviour than as outcomes (Beal et al., 2003). The link was also stronger where work flowed intensively between members. For a leadership team whose members mostly work apart, that is worth noting.

How do leadership team effectiveness models compare?

Several models describe what makes a team at the top effective. They differ in where they start: the team's set-up, its behaviour or its results. A fuller comparison, with popular models too, is in team effectiveness models.

Haas and Mortensen add a fourth condition, a shared mindset, to counter “us and them” thinking (Haas and Mortensen, 2016).

What are the signs of an ineffective leadership team?

Most signs show in meetings and in what the organisation hears. Treat each as a question to explore, not a verdict.

• Members name different people when asked who is on the team. Hackman found unclear membership common at the top (Coutu, 2009).
• Members defend their own units first, ahead of the team's shared work (Wageman et al., 2008).
• Agenda items arrive without a stated goal, and discussion drifts (Bang et al., 2010).
• People stay silent when a meeting loses its way, fearing it will look negative (Bang, 2012).
• Disagreement turns personal, which goes with poorer group outcomes (de Wit et al., 2012).
• Units hear different priorities from different members, a sign that direction and alignment are missing (Drath et al., 2008).

How do you measure leadership team effectiveness?

Ask every member the same short questions about the team, anonymously, across all four layers. Read both the average and how far members agree. Ask those who receive the team's work too: Hackman's first test is theirs to judge (Haas and Mortensen, 2016).

Haas and Mortensen suggest a light check every few months, with deeper reviews when problems arise (Haas and Mortensen, 2016). Methods, example questions and ways to keep answers anonymous are in how to assess a leadership team.

How do you build a high-performing leadership team?

Build a high-performing leadership team layer by layer, in order. The steps below turn the research into practice; adapt them to your team.

Frequently asked questions about leadership team effectiveness

Is leadership team effectiveness different from team effectiveness?

The tests are the same: output, the ability to keep working together and members' growth (Haas and Mortensen, 2016). The setting differs. A leadership team's output lands on the whole organisation, and each member also answers for a unit (Katzenbach, 1997).

Does leadership team effectiveness affect results?

The evidence is indirect. Across 112 studies, trust among members went with team performance (De Jong et al., 2016). In 92 team meetings, constructive interaction was related to organisational success 2.5 years later (Kauffeld and Lehmann-Willenbrock, 2012). Neither looked only at leadership teams, and both show links rather than causes.

What can you do this month?

Pick one layer and test it in your next two meetings. Each of these takes minutes, and each tells you something.

• Ask each member, privately, to list who is on the leadership team. Compare the lists.
• Ask which three issues this quarter need all of you, and which issues do not.
• Give every agenda item a one-line goal and an owner, and check at the end whether you met it.
• Close one meeting by asking what each member held back, and what would have made it easier to say.