Why and How to Build a High Performing Executive Team

Building a high performance executive team is arguably the most important job for a CEO. An organisation cannot outperform its leadership team. The health and performance of the entire organisation rests on the leadership quality and health of the most senior team. Any dysfunction at executive team level will cascade through the organisation. 

The culture of the executive team really matters: As Peter Drucker from Harvard University puts it, ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’. An executive team may have a clear and strong strategy but without a healthy culture with high levels of communication and trust the organisation will never achieve its potential. Conversely, if the executive team is healthy and high performing then the health of the team will cascade positively throughout the organisation as the diagram below illustrates.

Healthy Culture cascades throughout the organisation from the executive team

A High performing team is the difference between hitting targets and exceeding them, to beating competitors and ultimately providing the best value for customers. However, very few teams perform to their potential because it requires intentionality and a relentless focus to unlock and unleash the potential of every member of the team to be at their best. The resulting synergy is breathtaking to observe. So, from the outset the CEO needs to set the target that the executive team will be the healthiest team in the entire organisation.

Five executive team behaviours that transform performance

This article identifies five key elements of High Performing Teams. All are crucial and when each element is strong we see a cumulative effect resulting in performance momentum and a team that excels.

01. Have a Clear Vision & Values Manifesto

A clear, unified understanding of the company’s vision/mission, priorities, and long-term direction is our starting point. Each executive needs to know what the purpose of the business is and why they exist as a team. This vision needs to be compelling and clear to all.

Following a clear and compelling Vision/Mission Statement, is a clear set of values. These are not just company wide values, although those are important, these are the specific values and ‘ways of working’ of the Executive Team. This is often referred to as an ‘Executive Team Manifesto’. Having a manifesto makes the implicit explicit. It means the entire team is ‘on the hook’ for this. It is how we behave and treat each other. This is especially important when under pressure as stress behaviours can undermine team unity and health. 

Create a Manifesto: We help executive teams to create their own Leadership Manifesto that directs and shapes how they will live out their purpose, how they will communicate and treat each other and how they will operate as a team. The team decides on the elements of the manifesto (often between 5 and 7 values) together and the CEO and possibly others (CPO etc.) remind the team of these regularly.

Driving Performance: The Leadership Manifesto becomes a ‘live’ set of values that everyone adheres to and by doing so, it creates a high performing culture. The values of the manifesto guide the way the team works to fulfil its vision/mission. The power of the manifesto is only experienced if the team behaviour is tracked through the year at regular intervals. Executives confidentially assess the team against the manifesto and a score is given. It is possible to identify low scoring areas and then the team can intentionally work the lowest scores to increase performance.

Recommendation: Book a call with one of our consultants to receive more information on how to run an executive team day to collectively create a leadership manifesto for the team

To sum up, an executive team manifesto creates clarity, alignment, trust, and accountability at the highest level—where it has the greatest impact on the entire organization.

02. Choose Complementary Leadership Voices

By appointing different personalities in the team a CEO can avoid building a team in their own image. Doing so would result in dangerous blindspots for the team. For instance:

• Visionary CEOs may underweight execution risk
• Analytical CEOs may move too slowly
• Decisive CEOs may miss dissenting views
• Relational CEOs may avoid hard trade-offs

Wise leaders recruit and appoint complementary skills and this is particularly important when it comes to soft skills - personality and leadership. A strong mix of strategic vs. operational, visionary vs. analytical, risk-taking vs. risk-mitigating, will minimise those blind spots.

Personality assessments are helpful here however they need to be simple, accurate and memorable so they become ‘sticky’ for the team. There are many good ones on the market. At Wakeman & Wright Group we use the 5 Voices Assessment from GiANT Worldwide.

Source: giantworldwide.com

This type of assessment for the team not only increases self awareness and emotional intelligence but begins to create a common language and deep insights into each person's strengths and challenges so that the team can play to each person's strengths.

CEOs who build teams of different personalities build organizations that think better, adapt faster, and perform more sustainably

03. Grow in the Art of Collaboration

Collaborative skills are essential for CEOs and executive teams because the work at the top cannot be done individually anymore. Modern leadership problems are too complex, too interdependent, and too fast-moving for heroic, solo decision-making.

Teams that model open, honest, and collaborative communication create the healthiest culture enabling the team to perform at their full potential. At the heart of collaborative teams is a desire to listen well to each other and not assume you have the right answer or solution. Active Listening is a skill that every executive needs to develop because it draws out the brilliance of the team. This does not mean that the executive cannot have opinions or be decisive. When active listening is high, those on the other side of that leader will more readily listen to their opinions and decisions are more rounded and less likely to fail. 

Another key skill that each executive needs to develop is the ability to ask good questions of the team rather than solely give out directives. Thoughtful questions draw out the genius of the team enabling new insights and empowered decision making that is easier for the team to get behind. When combined with the ability to build common ground with others in the team, there is less conflict, and even though people may not agree with every decision, they will have been listened to, asked their opinion and feel valued which enables stronger ownership and commitment to decisions.

At this level in an organisation there is no place for executive ego. Collaborative skills are essential for CEOs and executive teams because they turn individual excellence into collective intelligence—and collective intelligence is what wins in complexity.

04. Build Trust (Psychological Safety)

Psychological Safety is a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up; it describes a team climate characterised by interpersonal trust and mutual respect in which people are comfortable being themselves.

Psychological safety is essential for CEOs and executive teams because the cost of silence at the top is extraordinarily high. When senior leaders don’t feel safe to speak honestly, organisations don’t just miss ideas—they miss risks, reality, and early warnings.

Psychological Safety is the highest indicator of High Performing Teams according to Google research, ‘Project Aristotle’. Project Aristotle didn't just reveal what makes teams effective; it quantified the impact of psychological safety on performance. The data is clear: teams that prioritise trust and openness outperform their peers on every metric that matters.

In his book, ‘5 Dysfunctions of a Team’, Patrick Lencioni identifies Trust as the foundational element in high performing teams. He argues that trust is the foundation that all the other elements build on, namely - healthy conflict, commitment, accountability and focus on results.

What is the level of trust in your team right now?

Recommendation: Take the Team Performance Assessment with us at Wakeman & Wright to assess the real level of trust in your team.

05. Have Difficult Conversations Well

When asked, ‘are you great at having hard conversations?’ very few will raise their hands. There are lots of reasons for this - conflict avoidance, lack of confidence in how to have the conversation, and perhaps most importantly at Exec level, because the stakes are high and there is a genuine fear that it could go badly. However, conflict delayed is conflict amplified! 

Having difficult conversations well is a core leadership capability. It’s important because the hardest conversations carry the most value—and at the executive level, avoiding them is one of the fastest ways to damage performance, trust, and culture.

Executive teams that have been trained in how to have difficult conversations well, both among themselves and also with the teams that they lead will find they create healthy teams that thrive. 

One mantra that we have found helpful is to think about being ‘Kind’ over ‘Nice’. For instance, it might be ‘nice’ to avoid conflict to keep everyone in the team happy but the ‘kind’ approach is to address issues directly and constructively. It might be ‘nice’ to sugarcoat feedback to protect feelings but the ‘kind’ approach is to give honest feedback to help others grow. Choosing to be ‘kind’ over ‘nice’ will grow high performance leaders and teams.

In conclusion: Executive teams that intentionally seek to establish these 5 principles will find that not only will they have built a healthy culture but they will have an extremely well functioning and high performing team.