"When a client of ours, "Sarah," became CEO of a fast-growing tech company, she did what many first-time CEOs do: She gathered everyone with a "chief" title and called them her executive team. Soon, her weekly meetings looked like a high school lunch table with 18 people all pretending to update each other while quietly jockeying for turf. Decisions dragged. Priorities blurred. Sarah left each meeting wondering why a room of brilliant individuals turned into sludge the moment she put them together."
"is a Jarrod Shappell partner at Navalent who specializes in helping leaders effectively manage themselves by cultivate deeper leadership and relationship skills. He has over 15 years of experience coaching leaders in start-up, non-profit, and Fortune 500 organizations."
When a first-time CEO gathered every executive with a "chief" title into a single leadership forum, weekly meetings became chaotic and ineffective. Eighteen attendees created a high-school-lunch-table dynamic where people pretended to update one another while jockeying for turf. Meetings produced slow decision-making and blurred priorities. Bright leaders and experience failed to translate into productive outcomes when roles, agendas, and decision rights remained undefined. Effective executive teams require deliberate composition, clear role definitions, focused agendas, and mechanisms for resolving turf battles. Right-sizing the group and clarifying decision authority restores speed, alignment, and productive use of leadership time.
Read at Harvard Business Review
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