My leadership team members act like heads of their individual departments rather than a unified executive unit. When we meet, they protect their own budgets and resources instead of doing what is best for the whole company. How do we break this silo mentality?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your leadership team acts as a group of siloed department heads, your execution stalls and company-wide strategy suffers. They are suffering from high self-orientation, focusing on their own departmental budgets and prestige instead of the collective goals on your V/TO.

To break this silo mentality, you must establish the rule of the primary team. Your leadership team members must understand that their primary team is the executive team, and their second team is the department they manage. This means their first loyalty is to the overall health and vision of the company.

In corporate environments, status management often drives department heads to protect their territory. You must build safety and share vulnerability at the leadership table to change this. Use your Level 10 Meetings to force collaboration. When reviewing the Scorecard, if one metric is off, it is a company issue, not just that department head's failure. Encourage the entire team to jump in and help solve it using the IDS process.

When setting Rocks, ensure that at least some of them require cross-departmental collaboration. This forces leaders to work together and share resources. Make it clear that individual performance is meaningless if the company misses its overall goals. By shifting the focus from individual status to collective accountability, you align their energy toward your long-term exit and operational targets.