The executive leadership team must be connected and aligned at the thinking level. The team’s actions, reactions, and interactions get amplified throughout the organization. A defined and clarified executive leadership system is needed to establish structure and discipline.

It is a natural tendency as organizations grow…the parts grow apart. Most of us have our list of offenses and examples of the negatives of this ‘silo’ phenomenon. The growing apart begins with the disconnected and misaligned executive leadership team. They get focused on their area and become territorial. Their recognition (and compensation) depends upon it. The negatives increase over time and spread to all levels of the organization.

The solution begins with the executive leadership team connecting, aligning, and engaging with one another in a structured and disciplined process. Each one on the team must share their thinking about the ‘big issue’ topics confronting them. Their thinking is helping, distracting, or hurting their and the organization’s performance. The big issues they are concerned about must be ‘on the table’ with one another. Trust begins with sharing, clarity, and transparency.

What is going on in their minds impacts significantly how they react and interact with one another. The ongoing discipline of sharing and interacting with each other’s key issues (in bullet point form) helps the team connect at their thinking and emotional level. It doesn’t take a lot of time. Unexpressed thinking often ‘leaks out’ into behaviors that are confusing to others. We often hear, ‘Where did that come from?’, when witnessing a leader react unexpectedly in a normal situation. The fix begins with a healthy and open dynamics as a team.

We now live, lead, and work in a virtual world. Executive leadership teams are the single most impactful team in organizations. How they connect, align, and engage is a significant contributor to how well the parts of the organization connect, align, and engage with one another.