Leadership

Patrick Lencioni asks: ‘Who’s Team No. 1?’

New York Times best-selling author Patrick Lencioni has a challenge for CEOs. The next time you’re in a meeting with your executive leadership team, ask them: “What’s more important to you: my team that you’re a member of or the team that you’re the leader of?”

Add a bit of truth serum — maybe a glass of wine, says Lencioni — and CEOs will soon discover that department heads often identify more with the people they hire, sit near and work with every day, even though they know their job is to execute the CEO’s strategy.

“It is so regular and understandable and dangerous,” Lencioni says, “ because then when they come to meetings, deep down inside, they’re saying, ‘How do I first get what my department needs?’”

In this clip, Lencioni explains how putting departments first can destroy cohesion, and why the executive team needs to come first to ensure harmony across an organization.

Related resources

Full presentation from Patrick Lencioni [Vistage members only]

 

Category: Leadership

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