Where Executive Team Coaching Strengthens Group Processes in Times of Change
Senior teams rarely struggle with change for strategic reasons. What derails progress is almost always relational: the patterns, unspoken tensions, and cultural assumptions that emerge when the pressure rises. These dynamics shape how leaders interpret risk, make decisions, and respond to one another. Understanding and working with them is essential for leading change well as a collective, and it’s precisely where an executive team coach strengthens your group processes and collective effectiveness.
Introduction
Senior leadership teams are often viewed as the driving force behind organisational success. Yet paradoxically, these same high‑performing groups can stumble when faced with the demands of change. This article explores why senior teams, despite their achievements, struggle to adapt, not because of strategic shortcomings, but because of the relational dynamics that surface under pressure.
For executives, managers, and team leaders, understanding these hidden patterns is essential for navigating the complexities of change and fostering a culture of growth.
Why Senior Teams Fail at Change: Beyond Strategy
Conventional wisdom holds that change initiatives falter due to poor strategy or a lack of clarity in vision. The reality is more nuanced. The root cause often lies in the relational patterns, what I call the soft systems or soft skills, that emerge or fail to emerge when teams are under stress.
High‑performing senior teams are not immune. In fact, their success can mask underlying issues that only become visible during periods of transformation. When the stakes rise, long‑established ways of working can inadvertently stifle innovation, hinder honest dialogue, suppress healthy dissent, and perpetuate resistance to change from the top down.
Documented Pitfalls: Insights from Scott Brown
Scott Brown’s 2023 Forbes analysis highlights four common pitfalls that undermine senior teams during change:
1. Ineffective Meetings
Meetings become ritualistic rather than purposeful, with critical issues left unaddressed. Example: A senior team at a large retailer found their weekly meetings had devolved into routine status updates. When a major change initiative launched, concerns about customer experience were never surfaced, leading to confusion and missed opportunities. Shifting to agenda‑driven meetings focused on specific change phases helped the team uncover and resolve hidden issues.
2. Poor Communication
Unspoken assumptions and lack of clarity breed misalignment. Example: A technology firm assumed everyone understood the new digital strategy, yet never discussed it explicitly. Departments interpreted the change differently, resulting in delays and duplicated work. Regular cross‑team briefings improved clarity and alignment.
3. Poor Decision‑Making
Decisions are delayed or made without full informational input, leading to weak commitment and second‑guessing. Senior teams must consciously check their decision‑making techniques rather than defaulting to popular or expedient choices.
4. Siloed Working
Leaders revert to defending their own domains, undermining cross‑functional collaboration and creating structural holes in their organisation. Example: During a merger in a financial services company, divisions protected their own processes and resisted integration. A coach‑facilitated series of joint problem‑solving workshops helped leaders share information, build trust, and accelerate the merger’s success.
These pitfalls are not operational failures; they are manifestations of deeper relational tensions that surface under the pressure of change.
Siloed Working and Collaboration: Practitioner and Scholarly Perspectives
Siloed working is particularly damaging for senior teams. When leaders retreat into their own domains, trust and information flow break down, making coordinated change nearly impossible.
Graham Winter’s 2025 analysis for the Institute of Managers and Leaders highlights how inefficiencies and resistance often stem from entrenched silos, where leaders prioritise departmental goals over organisational objectives.
Scholarly research by Tessa Horilla and Marko Siltonen reinforces this, showing that relational leadership, the ability to foster connection and shared purpose across boundaries, is essential for breaking down silos and enabling collective action. When senior leaders come together as a team, they can achieve far more than the sum of their individual contributions.
The Role of Time in Team Effectiveness
Horilla and Siltonen also emphasise the importance of time in shaping team effectiveness. Strong senior teams invest time in building relationships, establishing mutual understanding, and aligning on values.
Yet when change is imminent, the pressure to deliver often erodes these foundations. Hidden cultural assumptions like “we’ve done this before,” “we’ve worked together for years,” “we’ll get better over time” can create a false sense of cohesion.
In reality, individuals experience time differently depending on:
- how long they’ve been in the team
- where they are in their own leadership lifecycle
- what future they anticipate for themselves
Expectations of leadership shift over time, too, from directive to facilitative, requiring regular check‑ins, feedback loops, and informal conversations. Without this, teams may find themselves ill‑equipped to handle the emotional and practical challenges of change.
Healthy Conflict and Psychological Safety
One of the most overlooked ingredients in successful change is healthy conflict. Senior teams often strive for harmony and personal comfort, but this can lead to superficial politeness and avoidance of difficult conversations.
Example: At a manufacturing firm, the leadership team avoided tough conversations about operational inefficiencies. When an executive coach facilitated sessions encouraging dissent and amplifying quieter voices, the team began debating openly. This led to innovative solutions and renewed engagement.
Psychological safety, the confidence that team members can express dissent without fear, is essential for surfacing diverse perspectives and addressing underlying tensions. Constructive conflict enables teams to challenge assumptions, refine decisions, and build genuine commitment to change.
Without these conditions, senior teams risk stagnation and disengagement.
Executive Team Coaching: Unlocking Relational Change
Executive team coaching offers a powerful route to addressing the relational dynamics that impede change.
Example: A global logistics company engaged an executive coach to support its senior team through a major restructuring. Through guided exercises, leaders learned to give and receive feedback, address hidden tensions, and build mutual accountability. Their adaptability improved markedly, and the change initiative succeeded.
A skilled coach helps senior teams:
- recognise and shift unhelpful relational patterns
- facilitate honest, often overdue conversations
- build trust and mutual accountability
- strengthen their collective resilience
Bruce Tuckman’s work reminds us that teams can remain in the Forming stage for years. Time alone does not mature a team. Intentional relational work does.
By focusing on relational health, not just individual performance or strategic alignment, executive coaching prepares senior teams to navigate change with greater confidence, cohesion, and adaptability.
Conclusion
Senior teams may be high performing, but their capacity for change hinges on the quality of their relationships. The pitfalls documented by Scott Brown, the inefficiencies highlighted by Graham Winter, and the research insights from Horilla and Siltonen all point to the same truth: strategy alone is not enough. The reason culture “eats strategy for breakfast,” as Peter Drucker famously observed, often resides in the relational dynamics within the senior leadership team itself.
To overcome resistance and drive meaningful transformation, senior teams must invest in:
- healthy conflict
- mutual accountability
- relational leadership
- psychologically safe dialogue
Executive team coaching can act as a catalyst, helping senior teams unlock their collective potential and embrace the challenges of change. For leaders navigating uncertain times, prioritising relational dynamics is not just wise; it is essential for lasting success. When senior teams learn to see and work with these dynamics, they unlock a level of cohesion and clarity that makes meaningful change not only possible but sustainable.
References
- Beatriz Boza (2020). Boardroom Dynamics: A Powerful Tool to Deal with Uncertain Times. In Dynamics at Boardroom Level: A Tavistock Primer for Leaders, Coaches and Consultants (Brisset, Sher & Smith, eds.).
- Brown, S. (2023) Four Common Pitfalls of Senior Leadership Teams and How to Solve Them. Forbes, April.
- Horilla, T. and Siltonen, M. (2020) A Time to Lead: Changes in Relational Team Leadership Processes Over Time. Management Communication Quarterly.
- Bruce Tuckman. Stages of Group Development (video reference).
- Winter, G. (2025) What’s Wrong with the Senior Leadership Cohort. Institute of Managers and Leaders Australia & New Zealand, March
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