Building A Leadership Team

Most people are taught how to be high performers. But too few are taught how to perform in a team. And that’s a problem, because in most roles, you’re not an individual contributor. You’re part of a larger entity, working with others to build something. Yet, I see founders spend hours refining their product or systems,  But don't devote time to team development. At HomeServe, I approached team performance with purpose,  And it was one of the best decisions I made. Here are 7 tools I’ve used (and still use) to build high-performing teams,  Based on real lessons from building a £4.1bn business: 1️⃣ Start With Why (Simon Sinek) ↳ Before you focus on what or how...get clear on why. WHAT – The product you sell or the service you provide HOW – What makes you different WHY – Your deeper purpose or belief Every great team needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning. 2️⃣ The 70-20-10 Rule (McCall, Lombardo & Eichinger) ↳ How people actually learn on the job: 70% from challenging experiences 20% from coaching and mentoring 10% from formal training Most teams over-invest in training, and under-invest in real development. I'm amazed at how few founders or CEOs have a coach or mentor. 3️⃣ The Trust Triangle (Frances Frei, Harvard) ↳ Trust isn’t built with perks. It’s earned in three ways: Authenticity – Are you real? Logic – Do your decisions make sense? Empathy – Do you care? Without trust, you can’t build speed or loyalty. 4️⃣ The 5 Stages of Team Development (Tuckman Model) 1. Forming – Team gets together 2. Storming – Conflicts surface 3. Norming – Ground rules form 4. Performing – Results roll in 5. Adjourning – Project ends or evolves Don't panic during ‘storming’. It’s necessary friction. 5️⃣ The Johari Window (Luft & Ingham) ↳ Self-awareness is a team sport. Open – You know, they know Hidden – You know, they don’t Blind Spot – They know, you don’t Unknown – No one knows (yet) This helps surface feedback, build confidence, and avoid surprises. 6️⃣ The Energy/Impact Matrix (Inspired by McKinsey) ↳ Map every team member’s impact vs. energy. Use it to: Make smart hiring/firing decisions Spot burnout early Retain high performers High-performing teams don’t tolerate drift. 7️⃣ The RAPID Decision-Making Model (Bain & Company) ↳ High-performing teams make fast, clear decisions. Recommend – Suggest the course of action Agree – Those who must sign off Perform – Executes the decision Input – Provides relevant facts or opinions Decide – Final decision-maker This clears up delays, dropped balls, and blame. Building a great team is about building an environment where talent can actually thrive. I go deeper into team-building in my new book. Order it today: https://lnkd.in/eRYDKXdT ♻️ Repost if you believe team performance should be built, not assumed. And for more on how I scaled teams to build a £4.1bn business, Follow me Richard Harpin.

The uncomfortable truths about high-performing teams that nobody talks about (and what to do about it). After two decades of coaching executive teams, I've discovered five counterintuitive truths about exceptional performance: 👉 High-performing teams have more conflict, not less. Teams engaging in intellectual conflict outperform peers by 40% in complex decisions. → Action: Schedule structured debate sessions where challenging ideas is explicitly encouraged. 👉 Top teams strategically exclude people. McKinsey & Company found that each member above nine decreased productivity by 7%. → Action: Create a core decision team while establishing transparent processes for broader input. 👉 The best teams often break company rules. MIT Sloan School of Management research shows 65% of top teams regularly deviate from standard procedures. → Action: Identify which processes truly add value versus those that add bureaucracy. 👉 Emotional intelligence can be overrated (but not overlooked). Teams with moderate EQ but high practical intelligence outperform by 23%. → Action: Balance empathy with pragmatic problem-solving in your team assessments. 👉 Effective teams experience productive dysfunction. 82% of top teams go through significant tension phases before breakthroughs. → Action: Recognize periods of dysfunction as potential catalysts rather than failures. In today's complex work environments, understanding these hidden truths is critical. Embracing these contradictions rather than fighting them positions you as a leader to build exceptional teams—even when the process looks messier than expected. Embrace the mess. Coaching can help; let's chat. Joshua Miller #executivecoaching #leadership #teamdevelopment

The most expensive problems in leadership don’t show up in your P&L. They show up in the room. In the past 12 months, what I’ve learned — and what this graphic nails — is that most executive dysfunction doesn’t come from lack of experience. It comes from team dynamics no one’s willing to talk about. - A leadership team that avoids conflict because they fear tension — and then ends up with decisions no one’s really committed to. - A new hire who’s brilliant on paper — but can’t be vulnerable enough to build real trust. - A global team that says they value accountability — but tolerates missed deadlines and quiet underperformance. These aren’t soft issues. They’re the cracks that derail transformation, delay launches, and quietly crush performance. What I’ve found when hiring senior leaders is this: ✔ Most companies evaluate results. ✔ Some companies look at skills. ❌ Few evaluate how leaders handle conflict, feedback, and trust. And that’s where the biggest risk (and opportunity) lies. When I hire for high-performance teams, I don’t just ask: → “Can this person do the job?” I ask: → “Will they build or break trust when things get hard?” → “Can they challenge others — and be challenged back?” → “Will they own results, or protect status?” The most successful teams I’ve seen — especially in consumer goods where cross-functional collaboration is essential — all share one trait: They do the hard, human work. They talk about what isn’t working. They hold each other accountable. They lead with transparency — not territory. So, if your team is scaling, hiring, or transforming this year… Ask yourself honestly: Which dysfunction are we quietly tolerating? Because trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results aren’t “soft skills.” They’re the architecture of every high-performing executive team. And you can’t build anything strong without the right foundation. #ExecutiveSearch #LeadershipHiring #FMCGLeadership #HighPerformanceTeams #OrganizationalHealth #TeamDynamics

One of the hardest parts of leading high performers is realizing that talent alone doesn’t prevent burnout. I once led a team where everyone was sharp. Driven. Reliable. The kind of people leaders lean on when things get tough. And that was the problem. They were always the ones getting the extra work. The tight deadlines. The last-minute requests. The “Can you just handle this” moments. They never complained. They always delivered. Until they didn’t. Not because they stopped caring. But because they were quietly exhausted. What I learned then changed how I lead forever. High performers don’t need more pressure. They need protection. They need clear priorities, not constant urgency. They need space to think, not endless fire drills. They need leaders who notice when excellence is being overused. When we adjusted how we allocated work, recognized effort early, and set real boundaries, something shifted. Energy came back. Ownership deepened. Performance became sustainable again. Leading high performers isn’t about extracting more. It’s about creating an environment where their best work can last. And that’s a leadership skill worth learning.

A high performer gets promoted to lead a team. They’re exceptional at what they do, but soon realize that what made them successful isn’t enough to make their team thrive. Familiar story? Because team leadership isn’t just a new role. It requires a whole new mindset. That’s why when I work with leadership teams, I focus not just on what leaders do, but on how they think. Because inclusive leadership doesn’t live in 0:1 decisions. It lives on a spectrum. A space of conscious choices between: 🧠 Directive → Co-Creative From “I’ll just decide, it’s faster” → to “What’s the best way to include the team in this decision?” 🧠 Protective → Brave From “I’ll shield the team from hard truths” → to “I’ll create space where we can face them together.” 🧠 Extractive → Generative From “We already know what works, let’s move quickly” → to “What could we learn if we invited in different voices?” 🧠 Fragmented → Coherent From ““Each person on my team is doing their job well" → to “How do we connect this into one aligned direction?” These shifts unlock high performance and psychological safety and with it, the full potential of your team and organization. P.S.: Which mindset shift is most alive for you right now? --------------------------------- 👋 New here? Welcome! I'm Susanna. I help organizations with high-performing, inclusive leadership and culture by fostering psychological safety.

We've worked with hundreds of executive teams over two decades at Navalent. But here's what still surprises us: most of them do one or two things well. Almost none crack all three. One CEO we worked with inherited a team where at least six different versions of the company's strategic priorities existed simultaneously. Six. The team was stunned when we showed them. They had no shared sense of how to win — just a collection of ambassadors from their respective functions, each lobbying for their own turf. Another team we worked with looked great on paper. Smart, experienced leaders with the right intentions. But 60% had turned over recently, and they were being asked to lead a major transformation before they'd built even basic trust with one another. In both cases, the problem wasn't capability. It was that the team hadn't learned to play all three of the roles that high-performing executive teams must play together: → Setting clear competitive direction and securing resources → Shaping a healthy culture by modeling values and building relationships → Establishing the disciplined governance that keeps an organization moving Each role matters. But the real power is in how they work together — producing clarity, cohesion, execution, and ultimately, trust. My colleagues Mindy Millward and Eric Hansen and I wrote about all three roles — what they look like in practice, where teams most often fall short, and what it takes to integrate them — for Harvard Business Review. https://lnkd.in/ePDuG22c #ExecutiveTeams #Leadership #OrganizationalHealth #HBR #Navalent

After 23 years coaching executive teams, I've learned this: The smartest teams in the world still have blind spots. And they all share the same one. They keep solving problems with the same people. Stop protecting your team's territory. Stop assuming your best thinking is already in the room. Stop pushing harder with the same perspectives and expecting different results. The highest performing leaders do something almost no one talks about. They bring outsiders in. Other industries. Other functions. People with no reason to be polite about what they see. It's called teaming out. And it changes everything. When did you last let someone from the outside challenge how your team thinks?

On one of my toughest consulting projects, the breakthrough didn’t come from the most senior person in the room. It came from a junior analyst who spotted a risk no one else had noticed, one that could’ve cost the client dearly. We talk a lot about “high performance” in consulting. Early in my consulting career, I thought building a “high-performance team” meant filling it with the smartest people in the room. Over time I have realized that it’s about something else entirely: "A team that sees more than any single person can." If you remember, The Johari Window, it reminds us we all have blind spots. Leaders have two choices: → Pretend they don’t exist. → Build systems and teams to expose them early. Here’s what I’ve learned works: ↳ Mix cognitive styles and expertise – Pair domain veterans with fresh thinkers. The friction surfaces unseen assumptions. ↳ Make speaking up safe – Psychological safety isn’t “being nice.” It’s making dissent a contribution, not a career risk. ↳ Design for challenge, not comfort – Rotate roles, bring in outsiders, and celebrate the people who ask the awkward questions. Consulting teams move fast, solve tough problems, and deliver under pressure. But real high performance comes when everyone feels responsible for finding the blind spots. #Leadership #Mindset #ConsultingLife ------------------- I write regularly on People | Leadership | Transformation | Sustainability. Follow Surya Sharma.

🚀 Executive teams: want to boost team performance, alignment, and buy-in? The answer lies in supporting your leaders with tools to flourish both professionally and personally. Here are the benefits I've experienced with my past leadership team offsites: 1️⃣ Better Relationships and Trust – Stepping out of daily routines, leaders deepen trust and break down silos, fostering camaraderie and open communication. Especially with my global teams who rarely meet in person! 2️⃣ Empowered Performance – Skill-building helps leaders adopt shared frameworks, setting clear priorities for a cohesive vision, standards to maintain, and tactics to implement. 3️⃣ More Resilience – Challenging activities (like golf 🙂⛳) encourage growth mindsets and adaptability, preparing teams to navigate obstacles with resilience on and off the golf course while having FUN. 4️⃣ Better Communication – Training sharpens essential skills like self awareness and emotional intelligence, strengthening leaders’ abilities to tackle complex interactions. 5️⃣ Recharged Batteries – Time away from the office helps leaders reset and return with fresh perspectives and tools for improved performance for their roles in the office and at home. 6️⃣ Fresh External Perspective – An outside consultant offers another viewpoint, so it’s not the same internal leaders repeating the same message. The team benefits from cross industry examples as well. 💡 We need better leaders. When they are supported in these areas, it sets the standard for the entire organization. ✅ Which team offsites have made the biggest impact for your team?  ❌ Which ones didn’t land? Comment below! 👇🏼 #LeadershipDevelopment #TeamPerformance #ExecutiveLeadership #CorporateCulture

Being indispensable can feel like power. It's often a cage. Promotions go to the person who can scale. Not the person who is the system. Here are 7 ways to become "replaceable" on purpose (so you can move up): 1) Document what only you know 📍 Every process stuck in your head is a bottleneck and you're it 📍 Write the SOP while doing the task, not after 📍 Use simple language. If a new joiner can't follow it, rewrite it 📍 Store it where the team can find it without asking you 👉 Knowledge trapped in you traps you. 2) Train a backup 📍 Pick one person who shadows you for 2 weeks 📍 Let them do the task. You only correct, not redo 📍 Do a formal handoff. They run it, you review 📍 Your backup's success is your proof of leadership 👉 Leaders create redundancy. 3) Build templates 📍 Turn every recurring task into a checklist 📍 Add a filled example so there's no guesswork 📍 Templates remove the "let me ask you" step entirely 📍 One good template saves 10 conversations 👉 Systems scale. You shouldn't have to. 4) Delegate steps, not just tasks 📍 Keep the strategy, diagnosis, and design 📍 Hand off the execution and follow-through 📍 Be clear on what "done" looks like before delegating 📍 Review output, not activity 👉 Senior work is architecture, not assembly. 5) Make decisions visible 📍 Keep a simple decision log. What, why, and what you ruled out 📍 Share it with your manager and team regularly 📍 This shows your thinking, not just your doing 📍 Others can apply your judgment even when you're not there 👉 Visible judgment gets you promoted. Hidden execution doesn't. 6) Package your outcomes 📍 Pick one metric for every project you lead 📍 Document the before vs. after clearly 📍 One strong proof point travels further than 10 vague updates 📍 Don't wait for performance reviews. Share outcomes as they happen 👉 Proof that travels, promotes. 7) Ask for scope that requires influence 📍 Raise your hand for cross-functional projects 📍 Seek ownership where you need others to move, not just your own team 📍 Decision rights in ambiguous situations = visible leadership 📍 If you're always executing, you're never leading 👉 If you're always doing, you can't lead. The goal isn't to become unnecessary. It's to become too valuable to stay where you are. If this resonates and you want to go deeper than a LinkedIn post — I'm opening a private circle in June for ambitious women navigating exactly this. Small group. Real work. DM me "EDGE" if you want the details.