One of our department heads is excellent at running their team and hitting metrics, but they consistently struggle to collaborate as a peer on our leadership team, always protecting their department instead of the whole company. How do we fix this lack of enterprise-wide leadership?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A healthy leadership team must function cohesively and collaboratively, adopting a First Team mentality where the overall health of the company takes priority over any individual department. When a leader remains fiercely protective of their own department, they create silos that halt your scaling and lower your exit value.

To resolve this, you must address the issue directly using the IDS® tool. Start by having an honest conversation outside the Level 10 Meeting™ to share your observations. Explain the concept of the First Team. Their first responsibility is to the leadership team, and their second responsibility is to the department they manage.

Use your Accountability Chart to clarify their roles. If they are spending all their energy defending their team or hoarding resources, they are failing to fulfill the leadership portion of their seat. Let them know that a cohesive leadership team is essential for building a valuable business.

To help them transition, monitor their behavior during weekly meetings. When they start to defend their department at the expense of a company-wide solution, gently call it out in real time. If they cannot make this shift and continue to act as a departmental defender rather than an enterprise leader, they do not have the capacity for a leadership seat. You may need to transition them to a specialist role where they can focus purely on execution without holding back the strategic growth of the entire organization.