company leaders or functional leaders?

Is your team leading from a company or functional point-of-view?

One of the biggest challenges I see with leadership teams struggling to achieve business goals is the leaders tend to be overly focused on their specific functions instead of the overall company. In other words, they are strong functional leaders, but not company leaders. This leads to internal friction, inefficiencies, and ego clashes where functional leaders put their own agendas ahead of the company’s agenda.

How can you tell if your leaders are company leaders?

Company leaders connect their goals and progress to the company’s goals.

A well-functioning leadership team is aligned to a set of goals. When company leaders set functional goals, they connect it to the company goals and it’s crystal clear how their goals impact the company’s goals. When they report progress, they provide a business update, which explains the impact that their progress is having on the company’s goals.

Company leaders advocate for their function but defer to the greater good.

Of course, you want leaders to advocate for what they specifically need for their functions and the company to be successful. But most companies have limited resources and must allocate to the greatest needs across the business. Company leaders understand this and support peers who may need extra resources more than they do to ensure the company achieves its goals.

Company leaders hold themselves accountable to other functions.

Everyone is always busy with so many things, it’s easy to get caught up in our own work and forget about what others need from us. But operating in silos rarely results in overall company success. Company leaders understand that for the business to be successful, they must hold themselves accountable to what other functions need from them. They don’t focus solely on their own needs but approach their work from the perspective of what is most important from a company perspective and what the company needs from them to be successful.

Making sure your leaders are operating as company leaders is a key step to advancing your business goals and ensuring long-term revenue growth and profitability for your company.

You can learn more about these and other key concepts of modern leadership by joining my lōglab Facebook community where I do a livestream on Mondays at 10 am Pacific.