Tensions in the Top Team
The leadership team is misaligned, teams work past each other. Conflicts block any forward movement.
At a glance
How you recognize it
The leadership team decides, but each member decides differently.
What lies behind it
- Unresolved questions of power
- Everyone is solving a different problem
- Facilitation instead of leadership
- Blind spots at the top
Where the lever is
Tensions in the top team do not resolve through facilitation.
They resolve through clarity about the actual decision at stake.
01
The pattern
In one-on-one conversations with the CEO, every member of the executive team is clear, engaged and focused on solutions. In the joint meeting, that changes. Topics are circled, positions are staked out rather than negotiated. The meeting ends with a formulation everyone can support and no one regards as progress. The real alignment happens afterwards, bilaterally and in the corridor.
The organization senses this before the executive team does. Units work past each other, projects receive contradictory signals. Employees learn which executive to approach with which request in order to get the outcome they want.
The team is not incapable of acting. It makes decisions, but each member makes different ones. The tension at the top becomes tension in the organization, amplified by every hierarchical level it passes through.
02
Why it happens
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Unresolved questions of power
Behind factual disagreements there are often questions that are never negotiated openly: whose area grows, who gives up budget, who will be the successor. They shape every discussion without ever appearing on the agenda. As long as they stay hidden, every substantive decision remains provisional.
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Everyone is solving a different problem
Each member sees the organization from the vantage point of their own area and is measured by its results. Without shared goals and a shared picture of the situation, disagreement is the logical consequence, not a flaw of character.
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Facilitation instead of leadership
A CEO who seeks consensus rather than setting direction creates an equilibrium in which every member holds a tacit veto. The lowest common denominator becomes the strategy.
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Blind spots at the top
What is obvious in the organization reaches the executive team filtered and smoothed. The tension is underestimated because no one reports it back with that degree of clarity. This is the pattern of leadership blind spots.
03
Typical dead ends
“We need a team-building offsite.”
Better relationships change nothing about conflicting goals and unclear decision rights. After two days of good spirits, the team returns to the same structure.
“The CEO has to take a firm hand.”
A decision against the team is quickly made and hard to implement. Forcing unity shifts the resistance into execution, where it is harder to see.
“We will sort it out bilaterally.”
One-on-one conversations resolve individual conflicts and reinforce the pattern. The team learns that the real decisions are not made by the team.
“It will settle down over time.”
Tensions at the top harden because the organization adapts to them. Every year without resolution entrenches the camps further.
Tensions in the top team do not resolve through facilitation.
They resolve through clarity about the actual decision at stake.
04
Where to start
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Create a shared picture of the situation
The Team Alignment Check shows in ten minutes where the team has clarity and where it does not, as a shared diagnosis rather than an assessment of individuals.
Team Alignment Check -
Put the real questions on the table
The format Decision-Making Capability in the Top Team works not on the atmosphere but on the blockages: decision rights, shared goals, the questions no one has raised so far.
Decision-Making Capability in the Top Team -
Agree on decision rules
How the team decides when it disagrees is settled before the next conflict arrives. That ends the tacit veto.
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If the tension involves the CEO
A confidential sparring session clarifies your own role before the team is brought in.
sparring session
Go deeper
Insights that look at the pattern from a different angle.
- Insight · 4 min The Agility Lie: Why Honest Transformation Is Uncomfortable Agility doesn't fail because of poor implementation — it fails because of systemic incompatibility with existing power structures.
- Insight · 7 min Why Most Organizations Are Systemically Incapable of Transformation Agile transformations don't fail because of bad methods — they fail because organizational systems systematically sabotage change.
- Insight · 6 min Leadership Blind Spots: When the Top Cannot See What Has Long Been Visible Leadership decides without relevant knowledge. Information is filtered, polished, or arrives too late.
From practice
Anonymized cases in which this situation was the starting point.
- Mechanical Engineering · Duration 2 Days From Blind Spot to Strategic Clarity Strategic clarity and realigned responsibilities, starting point for accompanied OD
- Financial Services · Duration 3 Months From Founding Team to Scalable Organization Clear roles and decision-making paths, team conflicts resolved
Related situations
These situations often occur together.