Senior Leadership Teams Summary

Senior Leadership Teams

Summary

Part one:

Every team and individual has an important role at an organization or else the organization would not have hired him/her. However, the senior leadership team in my opinion is one of the most important teams at any company, for the reason of having the power to make finale decisions. Their decisions have implications on everyone else in the organization as well as the future of the organization itself.

Some of many points that I found interesting while reading this book are that many organizations still follow hierarchy leadership roles. However, studies have proven that a team working together on an complex task that requires more than just an individual is more effective in order for the task to succeed.

Many people assume that a team of experienced leaders is enough to become an effective senior leadership team without needing much direction or assistant. However, it is actually a bigger challenge to harness a high performing, talented and experienced individuals towards a top leadership team. It is not necessarily that they will be able to operate as an efficient team working together. Therefore, senior leaders establish the essential conditions for leadership teams by working closely together and not only become a team by name. Also, a clear purpose of team’s role should be provided to the team. In addition to that, it is necessary to inure that all team members have the required knowledge, skills and experience to accomplish teams tasks efficiently. Although it might be difficult that all essentials are met when a team is being launched, most of them should be met in order to form a successful senior leadership team.

An interesting fact that also stuck to me is that an ideal number of a group is 7 members. 7 members is an ideal number for the reason that it would be more complex to be lead if the group included more than 7 members. To prove this fact, as mentioned in class, the senior leading team to the president of the United States includes 7 members.

Part two:

This topic stimulated slight negative emotion for the reason that even though I find myself an effective team player when working closely with a group, I do not enjoy leading a team and would be discouraged when losing control of them. Also, the fear of being looked down to for being a female leading a team with a majority of men or a young adult leading older and more experienced employees within their specialties. However, this book illustrates that in order to putting together a real senior leadership team, three essentials are to be put in place. First one is though members of a team shares experience and have a shared goal to achieve, each individual is still responsible for completing individual work. Also, having clear boundaries of who is in and whose outside the team should be clear to team members as well as outside observers. In addition to that, a stable membership maintained long enough for members to get to know each others strengths, weaknesses and learn how to work closely together as a team. These three essentials when existing in a team makes the team a real one and therefore easier to lead.