Awake at the wheel: a study on executive team development

Senior executive teams are often a microcosm of the culture in which they exist, while also responsible for creating that very culture. Thus, developing the senior executive team as an effective coalition is crucial to creating sustainable organization change. However, the unique composition and dynamics of senior teams (i.e. members who lead their own divisions, high stakes around succession, etc.) contribute to the difficulty of their development. This article describes the development of a senior executive team of a multi‐billion dollar bank. A newly complex and fast paced environment was rendering the firm’s prevailing leadership culture obsolete. They could no longer rely on their history of success as a road map for further growth. Rather, they had to learn to break their pattern of interaction and establish a more collaborative mind‐set, processes and structures. As the article describes, this is no easy task, especially for those responsible for leading large institutions in what were once considered traditional industries.