Creating Trust in Your Executive Team

Executive teams are challenging to recruit, lead and manage. You want excellent leaders who are also team players. Figureheads who have the common touch. Individuals bold enough to take risks, yet sensible enough not to put their foot in it with the press.

When I’m working with executive teams to overcome business challenges, what often surfaces is a lack of trust. If you’ve re-mortgaged your home to set the business up, it’s understandable that you might worry about letting the Sales and Finance Directors take the lead in your absence, but what risks does this lack of trust present to your business?

An inability to make well-informed strategic decisions

If every long-term decision falls to you, your exec team may feel that they cannot share their experiences and insights. If you want to make decisions based on a true picture of how your business is operating, you need the whole team’s views.

Opportunities will go undiscovered

A healthy exec team will feel able to voice their opinions and put forward ideas without fear of ridicule. A team of “yes men” will take you nowhere new; a team who can contribute and usefully challenge one another’s thinking could give you a priceless breakthrough.

The risk of losing great people

As a founder or business owner you are better placed than most to understand what makes senior leaders tick, and you should know what personally motivates everyone in your team. There is only so much you can pay – and do you really want someone that’s only there for the money? Your challenge is to make your team feel so personally invested that they can’t be bought by someone else.

A reduced market value

No doubt you have a plan at some point to exit your business, and if you do, then you’ll have a value in mind. How far are you from that today? Part of a strong market valuation is demonstrating that the business is self-sufficient and if you’re not letting your leadership team take the reins, then you’re probably not ready.

Executive handcuffs

Assuming that you have the above exit strategy in mind, do your exec team know? If they don’t, why not? Being upfront about what you ultimately, personally want to achieve shows that you trust your team, gives you the opportunity to succession plan, and gives your exec team the ability to do what you’ve hired them for: actually run the business.

Incredibleresults has worked with hundreds of senior leaders world-wide to get their businesses in the best shape ever. We specialise in helping leadership teams think and act differently to create outstanding business growth. To find out more, get in touch.