The future of leadership depends less on traditional structure and more on how organisations create a teaming system to coordinate action.

Most teams I work with do not flounder because they lack strategy, talent or effort. They fail because they are misaligned.

One of the distinguishing attributes of highly effective leadership teams is their capacity to tolerate the tensions in difference.  

The most significant shift I observe in teams that move from floundering to flourishing is this: They stop operating as a collection of executives and align to a shared purpose.

I’m pleased to share the State of Teams 2026 white paper which includes the results of a decade analysing executive teams in action.

When tension rises and conflict feels inevitable, notice what often happens. Someone (or you) suggests: “Let’s agree to disagree.”

In my work with executive teams, I consistently observe leaders showing up in one of two ways: those who strive to be interesting, and those who choose to be interested.

Difficult conversations are not difficult because of the content of the conversation but because of the context of the conversation.

Someone with a low level of self-awareness cannot operate as if they were self-aware. Not all situations require a higher level of consciousness. For example, when facing danger, our instincts keep us alive.

Most leaders claim feedback is key to learning, yet for some, the moment feedback challenges what they believe and how they see themselves, their openness fades.

Much is being written and spoken about the “human skills” leaders need today; the capabilities that differentiate human capacity from technological and machine capability.

At the close of a year-long executive team coaching program, the CEO paused and asked me: “If there’s one thing you’d suggest we keep doing to help us to continue to operate as a high performing team, what is it?”