Page 171 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

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: “Members of the executive management team argue in front of
other coworkers and do not demonstrate a positive role model to
their employees.”
: “The only organizations with leaders setting real examples and
driving forward are engineering and sales. And these organi-
zations are most crippled by the incredible weakness of the other
teams. Executives are dysfunctional among themselves—they each
go in their own direction.”

In one comment, we noted the beneficial effect that a new senior
leadership team can have: “A few years ago I would have answered the
survey completely differently. The new management team seems to have so-
lidified the direction that the company is heading, and that alone has made
me more optimistic.”
Certainly, the lesson for leaders is to do the opposite of the above
team-destroying sins: tear down the “we-they” barriers; suppress their
own self-interest and do what is right for the whole team; not let a
culture of blame get a foothold; and do everything they can to destroy
silos and manage the ego issues that destroy executive teamwork. All
this is much easier to say than to do, of course. If all or most of these
issues are present, they are undoubtedly signs of more deeply embed-
ded leadership problems.

Leader-Manager Behavior That Builds Teamwork
The good news is that great team leadership is alive and well in many
organizations and units. Interestingly, employees’ positive comments
about team leaders divided themselves not into the same categories as
the negative comments, but into two broad themes: (1) that their lead-
ers were on the team as partners, not above it, and (2) that their leaders
had worked to create a sense of community, fun, and camaraderie in
the workplace.