Vision, Execution, and the Brutal Truth About Leadership Teams
Here’s a leadership lesson I wish someone would’ve told me when I started the job as President (applies to all leadership jobs):
It’s not about who you like. It’s about who gets the job done.
That sounds cold. It’s not. It’s reality.
Too many leaders make the mistake of surrounding themselves with people they’re comfortable with. People who make the meetings easy. Who laugh at the same jokes. Who don’t push back too hard.
The problem?
That team doesn’t scale. That team doesn’t challenge the strategy. That team lets things slide because no one wants to challenge their “friends”.
There’s an old quote, and it’s one of my favorites:
“Vision without execution is hallucination.”
It hits even harder when you're trying to grow a business and your team is politely nodding at strategy slides they don’t actually believe in—or worse, don’t know how to execute.
Your “First Team” Isn’t the One You Think It Is
Patrick Lencioni, in The Advantage, talks about a concept that changed the way I lead: Team 1.
It means this: the most important team for any executive isn’t their direct reports. It’s the leadership team they sit on.
Sounds simple. It’s not.
Because what happens when you’ve got a VP who’s more loyal to their own function than to the company strategy? Or when your CFO and Head of Sales act like they’re in different companies?
You get silos. You get competing agendas.
You get dysfunction in a really nice PowerPoint template.
Alignment Is a Full-Contact Sport
As a leader, you can try to dictate the strategy from the top.
But here’s the reality—once your business crosses a certain size, command and control stops working.
At my level, I’m not just driving the car—I’m also making sure the engine parts are working together, that the wheels are aligned, and that we’re all trying to go to the same place.
That takes real alignment. Not agreement—alignment.
We don’t have to all like the plan. But when we walk out of the room, we’re committed.
If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be on the team. Period.
The Pencil and the Blank Page
When I’m thinking about how to structure a team, I don’t start with people. I start with a pencil and a blank piece of paper.
I sketch out the structure we actually need.
Then I think about the pros and cons.
Only then do I look at the names of who I have.
And sometimes… they don’t fit.
Not because they’re bad people. They’re just not the right people for where we’re going.
The faster you come to grips with that, the faster things get better.
Leading Former Peers Is Awkward — Do It Anyway
One of the toughest parts of stepping into a bigger role is leading people who used to be your peers.
Your friends. Maybe even your happy hour crew.
Now you’re their boss. And suddenly, you see things differently. You see what they’re great at—and what they’re not. You see where their blind spots are. And you have to make the call.
Here’s the hard truth:
You’re not doing anyone any favors by keeping the wrong people in the wrong seats.
It slows the team down. It frustrates the high performers. And it burns you out trying to carry the weight of misalignment.
If I Could Go Back...
If I could go back and tell myself one thing when I took over as President for the first time, it would be this:
Get the team right. Fast.
Everything else starts there.
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What I have noticed, which you don't capture in this specific post, is that companies seek depth in particular experience and technician-level expertise when hiring C-Suite positions. Understanding a trade is essential. However, being a technical expert doesn't make you a good fit for strategic-level thinking and coordination. There is a trend in CFO hiring, for example, that highlights the desire to have CFOs who can be more strategic. When you look at job postings for CFOs, they focus on the technical qualifications and have limited depth on successful strategic leadership qualities and skills.