One of the change projects I led as an executive director was the introduction of a new service. It worked because it was high profile enough to get all my peers in the leadership team (IT, HR, Finance, Operations) unblocking issues for the project team when it was needed. Other projects weren’t so lucky. Whilst members of senior leadership team said it was important and that they supported it, they were busy working on their own projects.

Whilst I would love to think this shouldn’t make things more difficult, the reality is it does.

There are always office politics; people and teams that get on and some that don’t. In the ‘business as usual’ world people find workarounds. It means that your business may not be as efficient as it could be; but the work is still getting done.

When it comes to change, these differences can really slow things down and can add significant cost to your business as hours, days and even weeks are taken up in conversations about change rather than on DOING the change.

When it doesn’t work well it leaves the team on the ground confused because what one member of the leadership team says is slightly different to another. People often feel there are moving goalposts, which is terrible for team morale. While the confusion often costs time and money – as your team end up re-doing work.

But when it works well:

• Teams feel motivated and inspired;
• Clear on the expectations of them; and
• They understand what they are contributing to, and feel empowered to make a difference.

No project can be achieved by one person on their own. More than likely implementing change in your business is going to cut across departments, requiring people from different teams to work together in a coherent way.

As the leadership team of the business, what you want to achieve for change to be successful is your team power-posing at the top of the mountain! Happy that together – irrespective of what department they work in – they have delivered the project, the benefits are being realised and the project was delivered on time and to budget.

What you don’t want is lost souls, walking endlessly around. Some disengaged. Some frustrated at the lack of progress and some who may even give up altogether.

Working effectively as a leadership team to be high performing isn’t easy. I have first-hand experience of working in a leadership team where we weren’t all pulling together and it’s not enjoyable. Getting past the egos, and lack of confidence is hard but it’s entirely possible.

I have been part of some amazingly high performing teams during my career, and they are the most personally rewarding experiences I have had and working together we have achieved amazing results. But they are not created by avoiding the tough conversations. Quite the opposite.

Put the time you have invested in reading this article to good use. Take 10 minutes before you move on to the “next thing” to think about your answers to the following questions, to honestly reflect on where you are currently and what actions you may need to take as a team to improve:

• On a scale of 1-10, where 10 is high performing, where would you score yourself in terms of leadership team alignment?
• What are the causes of your lack of alignment?
• What actions do you need to take either individually and / or collectively as a team to address the underlying causes?