How to behave at senior levels of leadership for greater impact has been a ‘hot topic’ in my coaching practice of late, and so below I’ve shared 10 best practices to consider – and a bonus one (implied in #3 below) and a personal favourite is … AGREE OR DISAGREE, BUT COMMIT! … i.e. have the rigorous debates and once everyone has been heard and a decision is taken, ALL commit 100% to the decision.

When Board / SLT members learn to appreciate what to expect from each other, trusting relationships emerge—this is the key ingredient to accessing the Executive Brain for impactful transformational conversations.

Having Rules of Engagement written out (and co-created by the Executive team), and reviewed every 6 to 12 months is a powerful leadership practice to generate strategic and emotional alignment to getting things done. The KEY Question now becomes … What are your Rules of Engagement for your senior team?

BOARD / SLT MEETING RULES (How We Behave)

1. Is there enough rigorous debate (views and opinions supported by facts)?
2. Do we first question to understand – dialogue vs. monologue?
3. When decisions are made do we all stand by the decision 100%, not 90% the full 100%?
4. Do we review decisions made in the light of new facts (not just because we didn’t really like the original decision)?
5. Are we making the right decisions for the business as a whole even if that means sometimes we have to ‘take one for the team’?
6. Do we believe the ‘We’ is more important than the ‘I’ and that success is binary?
7. Are we all knowledgeable enough about the business to make the right decisions?

DO WE AVOID ‘BAD’ BEHAVIOURS?

8. Lobbying each other after the meeting to try to unravel the decision
9. Criticising or undermining the decision made when speaking with others
10. Point scoring to make ourselves look better and undermine others in the team