Why CEO needs High-Performing team to scale?

CEOs often face complex and challenging questions that can trouble them due to their impact on the company's future. CEOs need to rely on data, insights, and the expertise of their leadership team to navigate these challenges effectively.

The question on every CEO's mind is, "How can I make this transformation happen?" The rapid pace of disruption forces CEOs to continuously transform their organizations while consistently delivering stronger business outcomes. This constant transformation requires alignment and agility, which can be challenging due to the speed of change.

No CEO, regardless of their talent, vision, and inspiration, can single-handedly plan and implement a new business model. Transformation on this scale is only possible if CEOs fully leverage their most powerful asset: a high-performing team. 

Such a team can advance the CEO's agenda more swiftly and make the organization more agile and responsive to market changes- it is vital in the face of complex challenges. They utilize their collective experience and expertise to manage paradoxes, explore multiple alternatives, and build commitment to new strategic initiatives across the organization.

It’s difficult to work at your best if you’re unsure of what you’re working towards. Organizations that are high-performing are clear on their purpose and what that means to teams within the organization.

We often encounter these challenges in organizations:

• Highly talented and driven executives may not always be the best team players. 

• Team processes, especially decision-making, are usually implicit rather than explicit, leading to trust issues. 

• Teams often neglect to establish behavioral norms that promote trust and productive relationships, which are essential for team integration and motivation. 

• The collective efforts of the team are often unclear, causing executives to prioritize their individual responsibilities over the overall goals of the organization.

• Leadership teams typically do not focus on their continuous development, resulting in a lack of growth as a team. 

• Effective team performance happens in phases and can decline if the team leader does not consistently work on creating conditions for a high-performance team.

However, the challenge for most CEOs is that it can be difficult to identify what it would take to change a team that’s not performing, into one that is.

by Christine Law, Principal Strategic Advisor