Executive Leadership Team Development: Transform Dysfunction into High Performance | Andrew Bryant

The Executive Leadership Team (ELT) typically comprises the most senior leaders of a company, often with titles such as CEO, COO, CFO, CPO, CTO, and CRO. When the ELT works as One Team, the positive impact on culture and performance can be phenomenal, unfortunately, the majority of ELTs aren't even a team, they are a workgroup at best.

The Myth of the Executive Leadership Team

Just because you call it a team doesn't make it a team. A team operates with mutual accountability. Team members work together towards a common goal, tasks are shared, and success depends on collective performance. In a team, leadership is often distributed, and communication is more collaborative.

A workgroup operates with individual accountability. Each member has their specific tasks, and the group's success is the sum of the individual efforts. There is less interdependence compared to a team, and the focus is more on departmental or vertical achievement than on collective goals. 

Most ELTs operate as a workgroup with each CXO vying for the CEO's attention and resources. 

Developing High-Performing Executive Leadership Teams: A Practical Framework

Recognizing that the ELT isn't functioning as a true team is one thing, but how to fix it is another. Over 20 years of facilitating executive leadership team development across three continents, I've discovered that transformation requires three distinct phases: Foundation, Alignment, and Acceleration.

The Foundation phase addresses the elephant in the room. Your ELT members have been rewarded for years for siloed thinking and individual achievement. CFOs compete with COOs for budget. CROs clash with CPOs over priorities. Each executive built their career by being the smartest person in their vertical. Now you're asking them to share power, admit weaknesses, and prioritize collective success over personal wins. This doesn't happen with an offsite, and some trust falls.

Successful executive leadership team development starts with brutal honesty about the current state. I facilitate sessions where each member articulates their actual goals, not the sanitized version they present in board meetings. A CEO once told me his CTO and CMO hadn't spoken directly in six months, only through intermediaries. That's not uncommon. Until you surface these dysfunctions, you're building on quicksand.

The Alignment phase focuses on creating genuine interdependence. This is where executive leadership team development differs from typical team building. You're not trying to make people like each other. You're architecting situations where their success becomes mathematically dependent on collaboration. I design shared OKRs that force cross-functional ownership. When the CFO's compensation is tied to customer satisfaction scores alongside the CRO, behavior changes fast.

This phase also tackles the code of conduct. High-performing ELTs establish and enforce behavioral norms that would feel uncomfortable in a regular corporate setting. Team members call out defensiveness, grandstanding, and credit-stealing in the moment. The All Blacks rugby team has a saying that captures this: "Leave the jersey in a better place." Every ELT member must know they're accountable for elevating the team's reputation, not just their own.

The Acceleration phase is where executive leadership team development delivers ROI. With psychological safety established and collaboration normalized, the ELT becomes a competitive advantage. Decision velocity increases. Strategic pivots happen faster. The culture shift ripples through the organization because leadership teams model the behaviors they want to see.

I've watched this transformation happen with ELTs managing billion-dollar businesses and startups burning through Series B funding. The timeline varies, three months for teams with self-aware leaders who commit fully, twelve months for teams with deeper dysfunction. What doesn't vary is the need for external facilitation. Your CEO cannot lead this process, no matter how humble or skilled they are. The power dynamics make it impossible.

Why Most Executive Leadership Team Development Fails

I've been called in to fix failed interventions more times than I can count. The patterns are predictable. Companies hire facilitators who deliver generic team-building exercises that ignore the unique pressures of executive decision-making. Or they bring in consultants who've never actually led an ELT themselves and rely on frameworks that sound good in PowerPoint but collapse under real-world stress.

The other common failure is treating executive leadership team development as an event rather than a process. You cannot transform a dysfunctional ELT with a three-day offsite, no matter how expensive the resort. Real transformation requires sustained intervention: monthly sessions over six to twelve months, one-on-one coaching for individual executives, real-time feedback during actual business meetings, not simulations.

Here's what actually works. You need someone who understands both the psychology of high-stakes group dynamics and the practical realities of running a business. Someone who can challenge a CEO without getting fired, call out a CFO's passive-aggressive budget games, and help a COO recognize their communication style is crushing innovation. That's not a typical consultant's skill set.

A Tale of Two ELTs

One of the most compelling examples of how an executive leadership team can transform a company is Microsoft under CEO Satya Nadella. When he took over in 2014, Microsoft was struggling with declining PC sales, a failed attempt to enter the smartphone market, and an internal culture often described as combative and siloed.

Nadella made significant changes to the ELT and steered the company in a new strategic direction, focusing on cloud computing and AI. He also worked to shift the company culture to a "growth mindset," emphasizing learning, creativity, and collaboration.

Under Nadella's leadership, Microsoft has become a leading player in the cloud market, and its stock price has significantly increased. This success can be attributed not only to Nadella but to the effective ELT that he assembled and led.

On the other end of the spectrum, Uber's growth and public image suffered significantly due to the actions of its ELT under co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick. The company was frequently in the news for a series of scandals, including allegations of sexual harassment within the company, aggressive tactics against competitors, and more.

These problems were, in large part, attributed to a corporate culture that the leadership team allowed, where fast growth was prioritized over ethical considerations. This led to significant reputational damage, legal troubles, and ultimately, Kalanick's resignation.

Under new leadership, Uber has worked to repair its public image and reform its internal culture, but it still faces challenges stemming from the actions of its former ELT.

Diagnosing a Bad ELT

The seniority of the ELT means that they often don't receive the scrutiny and feedback provided to other teams within an organization. Structurally, Human Resources can often be subservient to the ELT, and so it would take the observation of an outside party, the board, or a courageous Chief People Officer to sound the alarm on the following symptoms:

1. Lack of Common Vision and Mission: If there isn't a clearly defined, shared vision and mission that binds members together, the ELT will act like a workgroup, with each individual focusing on their own objectives.

2. Lack of Trust and Openness: For any team to work effectively, there must be a level of trust and openness that enables honest communication, feedback, and collaboration. If these elements are missing, the ELT members will behave competitively, serving their own interests before the team.

3. A Culture of Conflict: The inevitable consequence of the ELT behaving competitively is that conflict will arise between silos and individuals. It is impossible to build a unified culture within an organization when the most senior leaders are competing for power or operating in fear.

4. Talent Drain: The absence of a tangible culture and the presence of conflict within the organization will inevitably result in talented employees leaving and in difficulty attracting the best new hires. A quick look at a company's Glassdoor comments and rating will give an indication of this.

5. Lost Opportunities: A company that is at war with itself will not have the agility to seize new opportunities creatively and will stagnate, and eventually become obsolete.

Confident Humility vs Ignorant Certainty

Leading a company is not easy, and being in the ELT requires balancing people, processes, and profits in a volatile business and Global environment. The complexities make it impossible for anyone to know everything, but there is an unrealistic expectation that members of the ELT should.

Perceived pressure to be perfect, a tendency to narcissism, or a hierarchical leadership structure have, unfortunately, generated many leaders who operate with Ignorant Certainty.  Such leaders are sure they are right, even though they are willfully or unconsciously ignorant of multiple factors. You know the type, the "My way or the highway" leader.

Ignorant Certainty from the CEO will inevitably prevent the formation of a collaborative ELT and may produce clones, who also rule their departments with similar ignorance.  This is what constitutes an ugly leadership culture.

The humble leader is grounded; they know they don't know everything, but are confident that, together with the right people, they can solve problems and make the most of opportunities. This is what good leadership looks like.

Executive Leadership Team Development Programs: From Dysfunction to High Performance

If you're a CEO reading this and recognizing your team in these descriptions, you have options. As the founder of Self Leadership International, I can offer executive leadership team development programs specifically designed for the unique challenges senior leaders face. These aren't off-the-shelf solutions. Every engagement is customized based on your company's culture, challenges, and objectives.

Programs typically include diagnostic assessment to understand current team dynamics and individual leadership styles, facilitated workshops that tackle real business challenges while developing team collaboration skills, one-on-one executive coaching for team members who need additional support, ongoing integration sessions to maintain momentum and address emerging issues, and measurement frameworks to track progress against business outcomes.

The investment varies by scope and duration, but most executive leadership team development programs run between 6 and 18 months. That might seem long compared to a quick team-building event, but we're rewiring behaviors that took years to establish. Sustainable change takes time.

What makes our approach different is the integration of self-leadership principles with practical business application. We don't just talk about vulnerability and trust in abstract terms. I create safe environments where your CFO can admit they don't understand the technology roadmap and your CTO can acknowledge they struggle with financial modeling. Then we build systems that help each of them succeed.

I've facilitated executive leadership team development for companies in financial services, technology, healthcare, manufacturing, and professional services. Fortune 500 corporations and high-growth startups. American, European, and Asian organizations. The cultural contexts differ, but the fundamental dynamics of executive teams remain remarkably consistent.

If you want to explore whether an executive leadership team development program makes sense for your organization, start with a conversation. I offer a complimentary 30-minute video consultation to discuss your current challenges, and I'll give you honest feedback on whether external facilitation will help or if you have other issues to address first. No sales pitch, straight talk from someone who's been doing this work for two decades.

FAQ: Can a CEO facilitate their own executive leadership team development?

No. The power dynamics make it impossible for a CEO to facilitate the genuine transformation of their own team. Executive team members will never be fully honest about peer dynamics or their concerns about the CEO's leadership style when that CEO is running the session. External facilitation isn't a nice-to-have; it's a prerequisite for real change.

In Conclusion

Ready to transform your executive leadership team from a collection of talented individuals into a genuine competitive advantage? I've spent over 20 years specializing in executive leadership team development, working with C-suites across 40+ countries. Whether you're a newly appointed CEO building your team or a board member concerned about executive dysfunction, let's talk about your specific situation.

Explore our executive leadership team development workshops and programs, or schedule a complimentary consultation to discuss your ELT's unique challenges and explore whether our approach is the right fit.