Leading on another level

The challenge

A leadership team needed to operate as one team, not a collection of brilliant individuals.

The timing made it especially important. The business was going through significant change on a global level, and people needed to learn to embrace uncertainty to sustain performance. In moments like that, everyone looks to the leadership team - for direction, for consistency and for confidence that the people at the top are aligned.

Trust within this team wasn't as strong as it could be. Difficult conversations weren't always happening, and when they didn't, issues stayed unresolved and positions hardened. Decisions took longer because alignment was an afterthought, something to be worked out after the fact rather than built into how the team worked.

Each member of the team was highly capable in their own right. The gap was in how they worked together.

The opportunity wasn't to work harder. It was to work together better to confidently move forward in an uncertain future.

Our approach

TLH designed a tailored leadership team journey in two parts.

It started with an offsite meeting to create the space to step away from the day-to-day, have honest conversations and focus on how the team wanted to work and perform together. Time away from the usual pressures gave the team permission to talk about the things that rarely make it onto a meeting agenda - how they really felt about working together, where trust had worn thin and what they needed from each other.

An offsite can create real momentum, but momentum fades without follow-through. So the journey continued with four months of Team Refuels to help new behaviours stick, maintain momentum, revisit commitments and work through real challenges as they arose. Each Refuel brought the team back to the agreements made at the offsite and tested them against what was actually happening in the business.

Together we focused on the habits that define high-performing leadership teams:

• Building trust through honest conversations
• Creating clarity around priorities and collective accountability
• Making better decisions together, faster
• Challenging each other constructively without damaging relationships
• Embracing uncertainty and focusing on the controllables

Working on live challenges, rather than hypothetical ones, meant the team practised new ways of working on the decisions that mattered most - with the support to reflect on what worked and adjust what didn't.

The outcome

The leadership team became more aligned, more connected and more confident in how they led together.

Relationships strengthened. The honest conversations that had been missing became part of how the team worked, and trust grew as a result. Decisions became faster and clearer because alignment was built in from the start rather than chased afterwards.

Accountability increased. With clearer priorities and a shared understanding of who owned what, the team could hold each other to account constructively.

Most importantly, the team developed a shared way of working that continued long after the offsite had finished - giving them the confidence to lead the wider organisation through change as one team.

• Stronger trust and relationships
• Faster, clearer decisions
• A shared way of working that lasted