Build a Cohesive Leadership Team

Build a Cohesive Leadership Team

Organizational health is the key advantage for all successful organizations. This is the subject of the book “The Advantage” by Patrick Lencioni. Organizations need to be both smart and healthy. He says that most organizations are smart and know what they do but few are healthy. These are the factors that determine organization health
·         Minimal Politics
·         Minimal Confusion
·         High Morale
·         High Productivity
·         Low Turnover
I want to write about one of the concepts mentioned in the book that is building a Cohesive leadership team
The only way to develop organization health is to build a team that is behaviorally unified. The team size should be between 8-9 and not less than 3 or more than 12.

The factors that lead to a cohesive leadership team are

1.        Building Trust
Members of the team should trust each other. The author coins the term “Vulnerability based trust” which is when members get to a point where they are completely transparent, honest and where they accept feedback or mistakes. This is the necessary ingredient for building team trust.
A leader should be able to handle criticism and be open to feedback for the organization to be healthy. By being vulnerable the leader displays selflessness and dedication to the team and inspires others to follow suit.

2.        Mastering Conflict
 Conflict is not a bad thing for the team. Infact the willingness to disagree is healthy as long as the conflict is not about personalities. Conflict by nature is uncomfortable but without conflict no progress is possible. One example offered is ensuring that everyone participates and provides their view point in meetings. Infact if an individual doesn’t talk in a meeting that can be considered as disagreement. If the rules of engagement are clearly stated then the team will be more forthcoming

3.        Achieving Commitment
 Once the people have had the opportunity to provide input, ask questions and understand the rationale there will be internal commitment to overall goals of the organization. The author gives the example of Intel which says “disagree and commit”. Even if everyone doesn’t agree on the decision they still have to commit to perform according to the final decision.”When leadership teams wait for consensus before taking action, they usually end up with decisions that are made too late and are mildly disagreeable to everyone. This is a recipe for mediocrity and frustration”

4.        Embracing Accountability
“Peer to Peer accountability is the primary and most effective source of accountability on a leadership team”. Team members need to be held accountable if a team is going to accomplish its goals.

5.        Focusing on Results
The main purpose of doing all the above is to ensure the achievement of results. “No matter how good a leadership team feels about itself and how noble its mission might be, if the organization it leads rarely achieves its goals then by definition it’s simply not a good team”

 Apart from cohesive leadership the other disciplines required for organizational health are
·         Create Clarity
·         Overcommunicate Clarity
·         Reinforce Clarity

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