your first team

About a decade ago, at an offsite for our senior leadership team at COOK, a short sentence changed how we saw our roles as leaders.
It has stuck with us ever since and been a source of huge value for the business.

A fish rots from the head down, so the saying goes.
The same is true of any organisation.
If there's anything rotten at the top, it seeps down and infects everything.

To be clear, there was definitely nothing rotten in our leadership team, but we were missing something vital.
Something that would unlock cultural energy and help drive us forward.

As we were debating our plans for the year ahead, one of the group uttered the golden words:
"This needs to be our first team."

So simple. So true. And so not where we were at.
As with many growing businesses, the senior leadership team had grown into their roles.
We were leaders of functional teams who came together to lead the business.
But we were first and foremost team leaders, not a team of leaders.
We represented our teams, not the business as a whole.

To take COOK where we believed it could go, we needed to shift our mindset, our behaviour and our relationships.
THIS needed to be our first team.
That realisation has powered COOK to a decade of remarkable growth.

Of course, that group didn't become our first team over night.
It took spending time together, being vulnerable with each other, open to challenge and learning, sharing problems ...
The group has evolved and changed through the years but without losing our "first team" ethos.

At any level of leadership, there will always be a tension between leading your team - being their cheerleader, champion and representative - and leading the broader organisation.
Embracing that tension is the gig.

👉 If you're part of a leadership team, does it feel like your first team?
👉 What could you do to develop and strengthen this ethos?

As well as my work at COOK, I guide other organisations on strategy, brand and culture. Get in touch for a chat.