Executive performance
Executive performance under pressure
What separates senior teams that hold together in difficult periods from those that fragment.
Pressure has a way of showing you how an organisation really works. When business is relatively stable, weaknesses within a senior team can remain hidden for quite a long time because there is usually enough time, capacity and goodwill for people to compensate for unclear responsibilities, difficult relationships or decisions that take longer than they should.
That changes when circumstances become more demanding. We have worked with leadership teams dealing with rapid growth, declining performance, major organisational change, difficult customer situations and periods when several significant challenges have arrived at the same time. Although the circumstances vary, we have often seen similar patterns in the way pressure affects the people responsible for leading the organisation.
Decisions have to be made more quickly and sometimes with incomplete information. Priorities that previously sat comfortably alongside one another begin to compete for attention and resources. People can become more protective of their own areas of responsibility, while communication becomes more important at precisely the point when everyone feels they have less time for it.
At that point, executive performance is not simply about whether individual leaders can cope with pressure. What matters just as much is whether the senior team can continue to operate effectively together when the organisation needs it most.
Clarity matters more when there is less time
One of the things pressure tends to expose is ambiguity around responsibility and decision-making. In relatively stable conditions, two directors can have overlapping responsibilities without it creating an obvious problem. They discuss issues between themselves, involve other people where necessary and eventually reach a decision.
When the pace increases, that same ambiguity can become a significant constraint. Time is lost establishing who owns an issue, who has authority to make the decision and which priority should take precedence when two legitimate objectives come into conflict.
We have seen senior people spend considerable amounts of time negotiating their way around the organisation when they should have been leading it. This is why improving executive performance often begins with something quite practical: making sure people genuinely understand their responsibilities, decision rights and expectations of one another.
An organisation chart can help, but it rarely provides enough clarity on its own. The more useful conversations are often about where responsibilities overlap, where decisions become difficult and what the team expects to happen when there is no perfect answer.
Constructive disagreement is part of a healthy senior team
We would be concerned about a senior team that agreed on everything, because different executives should bring different perspectives to important decisions. A Finance Director may see risks that a Commercial Director views as opportunities, while an Operations Director may be thinking about delivery implications that are less visible to colleagues focused on customers or growth.
Those differences can significantly improve the quality of a decision when the team knows how to use them. The difficulty arises when disagreement becomes personal or territorial and people begin defending their function rather than examining the issue in front of them.
When this happens, conversations that should take place around the leadership table can move into smaller groups afterwards. People begin trying to build support for their position rather than working towards a shared decision, which can quickly undermine confidence and trust within the wider organisation.
Strong senior teams tend to develop enough trust to challenge one another properly while maintaining the discipline to reach a decision and support it once it has been made. That is particularly important when circumstances are difficult, because employees quickly notice when senior leaders appear divided or uncertain about the direction being taken.
Pressure tests leadership behaviour
Most organisations have values, leadership principles or statements describing the behaviours they expect from their leaders. The meaningful test of those expectations comes when the organisation is facing something difficult.
A major customer may be unhappy, financial performance may be below target, costs may need to come out of the business or a transformation programme may be struggling. In those circumstances, the behaviour of senior leaders becomes highly visible.
Employees notice whether leaders remain open to challenge, communicate clearly and take responsibility when something goes wrong. They also notice whether difficult decisions are addressed or allowed to drift because the conversation is uncomfortable.
Senior teams sometimes underestimate how closely people watch them during periods of uncertainty. Leaders do not need to pretend they have answers they do not have, but people do need to understand what is happening, what matters most and how decisions are being made. A leadership team that remains visible, consistent and reasonably calm can provide a great deal of stability even when the situation itself remains uncertain.
Decision-making needs to reflect the circumstances
Not every decision needs to be made quickly. Some issues deserve proper analysis, consultation and debate, particularly where the consequences will be significant or difficult to reverse.
The challenge comes when leadership teams continue using their normal decision-making processes in circumstances that require a different tempo. Meetings become longer, more information is requested and decisions become progressively slower while the organisation waits for direction.
Effective teams are generally better at distinguishing between decisions that need careful consideration and those where speed matters more. They are clearer about what information is genuinely necessary, who needs to be involved and who ultimately has authority to act.
This does not mean abandoning good governance when things become difficult. It means recognising that executive effectiveness includes the ability to adapt the way the team operates when circumstances change.
A group of capable executives is not automatically an effective team
Organisations invest considerable time and money in developing individual leaders, and rightly so. What can receive less attention is the effectiveness of the senior team as a collective.
A group of talented executives can still struggle if each person approaches the leadership meeting primarily as the representative of their own function. The most effective senior teams develop a stronger understanding of what they are collectively responsible for and recognise that some of the organisation's most important challenges cannot be solved from within a single department.
That requires occasional attention to how the team itself operates. How are priorities established when resources are constrained? How is disagreement handled? Are decisions clear when people leave the room? Do members of the team challenge one another appropriately? Are difficult issues discussed early enough?
These conversations can easily be pushed aside by operational matters that appear more urgent. In our experience, making time for them before the organisation comes under significant pressure is usually a worthwhile investment.
Strengthening the team before it is tested
Difficult periods do not necessarily create weaknesses within a leadership team. More often, they expose issues that were already present but had previously been manageable.
That is why the best time to strengthen an executive team is before the organisation finds itself dealing with a major challenge. Establishing greater clarity around responsibilities and decisions, building relationships capable of withstanding disagreement and agreeing how the team wants to operate under pressure all create a stronger foundation.
None of this removes uncertainty or guarantees that every decision will be right. What it does is improve the likelihood that the organisation has a senior team capable of dealing with difficult circumstances together, rather than becoming another source of difficulty when the pressure rises.
After more than 25 years of working with leaders and leadership teams, we have seen repeatedly that the quality of a senior team becomes most important when the answers are least obvious. That is precisely why executive team effectiveness deserves attention before it becomes urgent.