Insights: C-Level Leadership

How to be a Collaborative Member of the C-Suite

One of the biggest challenges for C-level leaders is collaborating with peers. A driving factor is that for most organizations, senior leaders’ interests are not fully aligned. They may be competing for resources, the CEO’s attention, or opportunities. Also, senior executives are extremely busy, making constant tradeoffs with their time. This makes it hard to […]

Keeping in Touch with Your Growing Org

Your org has gotten big. Really big. In the past you led hundreds of people, but now you’ve got thousands. How can you stay connected with so many people? How can you be accessible without burning out? And maybe hardest of all, how can you make sure they consistently get the right messages from you? […]

Senior Leadership Teams Book Review: Strategies for Leading Senior Teams

This blog is the second in a two-part series summarizing the book: Senior Leadership Teams: What It Takes to Make Them Great. It focuses on the specific characteristics of leaders in supporting senior leadership teams. My observation is that the team leader exerts an enormous impact on how a team functions. While a variety of […]

Senior Leadership Teams Book Review: Conditions for Thriving Teams

The Senior Leadership Team, more than any other group, has the power to drive the success of an enterprise. The CEOs and executive team members we know are incredibly hard working, intelligent, mission-driven people who commit an enormous amount of time and energy to their organizations. And yet, even with all their extraordinary capabilities, these […]

How Senior Leaders Work With Teams

“Members of senior teams have a dilemma. On the one hand, they are responsible for leading their own organizational units. On the other, they are expected to be fully engaged and committed members of the enterprise’s senior team. It can feel like being caught in two powerful crosscurrents.” —Senior Leadership Teams: What it Takes to […]

Five Habits for Senior Executives

Years ago I coached a new manager who was frustrated by the amount of time he spent in meetings. “I don’t have any time to do my real work!” he said. I walked him through an exercise. On the bottom half of a whiteboard, we brainstormed all his previous individual contributor work, the things he […]