Think One Team, 3rd Edition

united leadership: the crucial ingredient in organisation success

When leaders are united, it creates an environment in which there is clear direction, collaboration, teamwork and leverage of effort. On the other hand, a disjointed group of leaders is almost certain to disengage talented people and cause the organisation to perform well below expectations.

what united leaders do

United leadership is about leaders at all levels setting a visible example of the five shares in their own actions as individuals and collectively by:

• communicating a sense of purpose and direction (share the big picture)
• creating a feedback environment so people learn and grow (share the reality)
• engaging or involving people to tap the ideas and energy of everyone (share the air)
• collaborating and supporting, while playing their individual parts (share the load)
• seeking success together (share the wins and losses).

You can tell that leaders are united when they put the health of the whole organisation ahead of their own politics or agendas. Questions such as ‘What's best for the business?’ or ‘How can we support you to make that happen?’ build confidence and trust that everyone wants everyone else to succeed.

One of the simple tools we use with leadership groups to test the unity is to put people in small groups and ask them to challenge each other to reflect on how strongly they have modelled the ten behaviours in the table below over the past week.

Try the test yourself by seeing how many of ...