Which leadership teams will do well in 2026
As we get back to work and reconnect with our teammates, take a moment to consider a question: which types of leadership team will succeed this year?
Here are five potential answers, with ideas and examples below. Have a look around and see if there’s an idea here that might help you and your team.
Teams which learn
Teams which invest in trust
Teams which stay connected to their people and customers
Teams which leverage AI to unlock their collective intelligence
Teams which accelerate their strategy execution
Teams which learn
What are you going to deliberately learn this year, as individuals and as a team? How are you measuring team performance, identifying opportunities to improve, and taking time to review your progress?
Idea 1: make sure you do a retrospective of 2025 and apply what you learnt to help the team work better in 2026.
Idea 2: make a learning plan for 2026, what does each individual commit to learn; and what will you learn together as a team?
Example: in December a team I work with committed to spend the first quarter learning how to better engage their next level leaders in the business strategy. That means trying out specific approaches and monitoring how well they work.
Teams which invest in trust
The first step in building trust is to make sure you’re all aligned on what this team is for, how it works, and why each individual matters. The underlying issue here is that people have different perceptions about what the team is for. Is it for sharing information? Managing the business today? Or leading the business for tomorrow?
Idea 3: get the team together to map your ‘value agenda’. List out all the stakeholders of the leadership team (shareholders, staff, customers, community etc.) and for each group ask “what value does the leadership team create for them?” Then condense this into a top 3, and use this ‘value agenda’ to drive your team meeting agendas.
Example: one team simplified their value agenda into three connected ideas: -
“As a leadership team we, (1) create the environment for our people to thrive, so that (2) our customers have great experiences, so that (3) we can deliver a predictable and sustainable profit for our shareholders”. This value agenda was used to drive their team meetings, to focus their time and effort on people, customers and profit. In that order.
Teams which stay connected to their people and customers
In leadership positions, it’s so easy to get bogged down in spreadsheets, processes, and firefighting. That means most top teams can get a little disconnected from their people, and a lot disconnected from their customers.
Idea 4: Building on idea 3, how can you stay connected to the people you serve, and how you make their lives better?
Example: Many companies claim to be customer-focused, but most of their leadership team don’t see, hear or speak to a customer from one month to the next. Crazy! How can you create regular, meaningful opportunities for the whole team to understand customers and their needs? With one team, we brought three customers into their leadership team offsite, to run an informal panel session. They found it so insightful and useful that they decided to do it at least once a quarter, using each as an opportunity to discuss the market in general, as well as ask specific questions about a key customer pain point.
Teams which leverage AI to unlock their collective intelligence
I’m working with a business owner who loves experimenting with AI. We’re asking the question: what would an AI-powered leadership team look like?
We’re about to run a pilot.
Idea 5: the AI-powered Leadership Team
Here’s what we’re going to test.
Can they use AI as a kind of memory: to capture their meetings, and record decisions, actions and owners?
Can they use AI to help them execute their actions: can it turn their meetings into actions in their workflow system (Monday.com)?
Can they use AI to help them make better decisions live IN their meetings?
Can they use AI to analyze their meetings and give them feedback – did they stay on track, did everyone speak up, did they make clear decisions and actions?
I’ll be reporting back on this experiment to see if AI can improve the team’s overall performance by reducing friction, making progress easier, and helping them learn.
Teams which accelerate strategy execution
In early 2025 I turned my business strategy into 6-week strategy sprints (followed by a 2-week break to pause and reflect, then another 6-week strategy sprint…). This 6+2 rhythm worked so well all year that I brought it to some of the leadership teams I work with.
Idea 6: Strategy Sprints
Here are 2 real examples of what happens when you get your leadership team fired up, get them focused, and give them the systems to succeed.
Leadership Team A took their business strategy and converted it into an 8-week plan to get some momentum. One of the secrets is choosing a small number of focus areas, and giving yourself permission to pause all the other strategic priorities. Another secret is that having a 6 or 8 week focus means you can plan more realistically as you can already see what else is happening in that period, so you can create more realistic deliverables for your strategy. After the 8 weeks they reported making 60% more progress on their business strategy compared to the previous period.
Leadership Team B had a Corporate Strategy which ran to 17 pages of priorities and jobs-to-be-done; and they only updated it every few months. They agreed to trial my Strategy Accelerator process to speed up execution. In our first workshop, I asked them all to write down on 3 pieces of card their top 3 strategic priorities for the next 6 weeks. We reviewed the group’s answers. Within just 10 minutes, the group became fully aligned on only 2 priorities they need to make progress on. Again, they gave themselves permission to focus on these, and pause other priorities. After the 6 weeks they said they’d made 40% more progress than before. In addition, the Leadership Team had communicated these 2 focus areas well, with great feedback from their wider team who were delighted to have a more single-minded focus from their leaders.
For more on the Strategy Accelerator, click here.
Connecting the dots
Great leadership teams are built on collective intelligent action and these five ideas deliver that. Working better together (collective), being smarter (intelligent) – and a strong emphasis on execution (action).
If you want to dig deeper into what makes a successful leadership team, drop me a line and I’ll send you a complimentary paperback or digital copy of my book which is a comprehensive overview of unlocking the impact of your top team.
