247 - 6 Signs Your Leadership Team Is Failing You

Here's something I've learned after coaching hundreds of CEOs. When a company stalls, the strategy is rarely the first thing that fails. The top team failed first, quietly, months before the numbers showed it. In this episode I walk through the six signs that tell you your leadership team is failing you, often long before the results do.

Leadership breakdowns don't announce themselves. They show up as slightly slower decisions, a little more politics, one too many escalations landing on your desk, nothing dramatic enough to trigger alarm until the damage is already done. I cover the six signals to watch for, from decisions routing through the CEO and disagreement disappearing from the room, to bad news arriving late and leaders quietly working around each other instead of through each other.

I also get into why CEOs consistently wait too long to act, and the one question every CEO should be asking about their leadership team before the board asks it for them. The bottom line is that a wrong person left too long in a leadership seat doesn't just underperform. They reset the standard for everyone below them.

Timestamps

0:00 Introduction and the central idea

0:30 Why strategy doesn't fail first, the top team fails first

3:00 The six signals of a failing leadership team

8:00 Why CEOs wait too long to act

10:00 Closing thoughts and the question every CEO should ask

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