10. The Leadership Team

In Chap. 9, we reinforced the importance of leadership development as a team experience. We should never send a coached leader back into an uncoached team. Taking leaders out of their team and out of their environment for individual development is not the best way to improve leadership performance and will have little impact on your organization results. In this chapter, you learn to distinguish between leader development, that is support for an individual leader and leadership development, which involves the leader and her team. Individual leader development can support behavioral or skills issues for individuals, but only leadership development, as a team, can improve both leadership performance and improving organizational results. We compare different types of development initiatives for leadership teams and the advantages gained through executive ownershift and why and how to put the customer at the center of everything you do. Last, but not least, you can measure your leadership team against the six signature team strengths to plan your next steps for continuous growth and results.