Leadership Team Coaching

Leading experts agree that in today’s VUCA environment a single leader can rarely meet the expectations of every stakeholder. Even the most charismatic individual’s skills, experience and ideas may not be enough to navigate complex organisational challenges. “In our global, highly complex world, the heroic leadership figure has increasingly become a relic,” notes Manfred Kets de Vries (2011). Peter Hawkins (2016) echoes this with a clear answer: “The heroic leader is dead; long live the leadership team.” We share this distributed-leadership view, which is why we recommend Team Coaching — a multi-month process that, in the words of the Academy of Executive Coaching, “enables teams to identify and address their challenges over a programme, resulting in deeper learning and more sustainable change”.

Leadership teams that want to:

• —operate successfully both internally and with their key stakeholders;
• —make the most of each member’s individual experience and potential and grow the value of the team;
• —open up to one another and build a culture of values rooted in trust;
• —develop the team’s capabilities consistently and over time.

• —a clear picture of the team’s strengths and growth areas, with progress measured using recognised methodologies;
• —concrete team agreements that move the work toward the desired outcomes;
• —faster decisions and open communication, with less time lost to internal politics and defensiveness;
• —follow-through on commitments and time saved by not re-opening settled decisions;
• —shared accountability for results across the whole team — not only the CEO.

Our practice has shown that a leadership team focused only on its internal dynamics sometimes struggles to make progress. The reasons often sit in the wider system — unclear direction from shareholders, or different readings of internal and external stakeholder expectations. We therefore bring a systemic perspective both to the leadership team and to the organisation around it. We see the leadership team as a group whose results depend on each member’s personal story and traits, the dynamics between them, the team’s relationship with stakeholders, and the broader culture and history of the organisation.

• —Systemic Team Coaching — P. Hawkins, “The Five Disciplines Framework”, with the Team Connect 360 assessment;
• —The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team — P. Lencioni;
• —Systemic-Psychodynamic Approach;
• —Systemic Coaching with Constellations.

1. 01Understanding the team context and contracting.
2. 02Applying team assessment tools.
3. 03Team workshops every six months, or as agreed.
4. 04One-to-one coaching for team members.
5. 05Reviewing team progress.
6. 06Closing session.

Each team’s process may differ.