Drama, Disorder, and Disintegration: The Many Faces of Dysfunctional Leadership Teams
Building a Great Leadership Team: Part II
This is part two of a three-part series. You can read parts one and three here:
Conscious, Connected, Effective: How to Build Great Leadership Teams
Saying No to Drama, Disorder, and Failure: Creating a Great Leadership Team
Recap
In part one, I defined conscious, connected, and effective and shared a tale of two teams: one conscious, connected, and effective, and the other not.
These concepts might be new to you, so here’s a refresher before you dive back in:
Conscious = to be here, now, in a non-triggered, non-reactive state.
Conscious leadership teams breakthrough politics and drama, creating a well spring of additional energy to execute on their mission.
Unconscious leadership teams experience Drama.
Connected = to be communicative and known.
Connected leadership teams have the competitive advantage of greater knowing, both of each other as individuals and the company as a whole. This greater knowing allows everything to happen faster and smoother.
Disconnected leadership teams experience Disorder.
Effective = successful in producing a desired or intended result.
Effective leadership teams have a clear and shared understanding of what the team wants and needs to achieve, and makes those things happen.
Ineffective leadership teams experience Failure.
Refreshed? Great. Onward, to part two.
Three Legs of a Stool
Now that you know what conscious, connected, and effective mean, I want to talk about why it’s important to have all three.
These three attributes are like three legs of a stool:
No legs? Your ass is on the floor.
One leg? Good luck sitting.
Two? You can figure it out, but you’ll have to do a lot of unnecessary work. There will be some falling.
All three? Ahhhhh, relaxation. You can sit down and trust the stool will hold you.
Unfortunately, most of us work on teams that are missing a leg... or two… or three 😬
Dysfunctional Leadership Teams
If you want to elevate your leadership team, you need to know what you’re working with. This means knowing what it looks like to be unconscious, disconnected, and ineffective.
To help you fine tune your discernment, I’m going to map out the many permutations of unconscious, disconnected, and ineffective leadership teams. I want you to have a visceral sense of what it feels like to be on each of those teams. You’ll leave well equipped to look at leadership teams past, present, and future and quickly understand the areas they struggle in.
For much of this discussion I’ll reference the graphic below. It might feel like a lot to digest at once, so don’t worry if it doesn’t click right away. I’ll explain it piece-by-piece.
Let’s explore the world of dysfunctional leadership.
Zero Legs = Disintegration
At the very center of the graphic lies a team that is unconscious, disconnected, and ineffective. They are sitting on a stool with no legs and their ass is firmly on the floor.
You’ve probably been on a team like this at some point in your life (I know I have).
This team is in a state of Disintegration.
Awash in drama, disorder, and failure, this team is actively falling apart. They are reactive, disconnected, often lack clear goals, and struggle to execute.
For a more vivid picture, revisit the first team in a tale of two leadership teams. It’s them.
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If you find yourself on an unconscious, disconnected, and ineffective team, ready yourself for a mountain of work. Adding even one leg to a stool while you’re sitting firmly on the floor is a long road with many challenges.
One Leg Scenarios
In the graphic above, teams with only one leg of the stool are represented by the areas where two circles overlap.
These teams operate effectively on only one dimension, and expend large amounts of energy keeping the stool upright absent the other two. Teams missing two legs usually find that it takes a lot of effort to maintain even basic operations, hardly move forward.
For this section, I’ll include the legs of the stool that are “missing” in the headline. In the first line, I’ll italicize the leg that’s present.
Disconnected + Ineffective = Frustrated Isolation
A team that is Conscious but Ineffective and Disconnected will experience little interpersonal drama but struggle with disorder, coordination challenges, and to achieve their goals (if they have goals).
This team is adept at working through reactivity, managing their emotional state, and taking responsibility. But they don’t communicate enough, know each other well enough, and aren’t getting clear on what they need to do and executing against it.
This team is characterized by Frustrated Isolation. Members feel lonely and frustrated by their disconnection and inability to achieve results.
This team is rare, if it exists at all. It’s usually the case that conscious teams discuss and address the issues that they experience, and so generally get connected and effective quickly. Still, you may find yourself on a team like this, and having that awareness can help you kickstart and accelerate the process.
Unconscious + Ineffective = Codependence
A team that is Connected but Unconscious and Ineffective will know each other well and communicate often, but get wrapped up in unconscious patterns of drama and struggle to achieve their goals (if they have goals).
This team is characterized by Codependence, an unconscious agreement to stay locked into individual and collective patterns of self-sabotaging behavior.
These teams, connected amidst drama and failure, fall into cycles of dysfunctional behavior and relational patterns. They often bust to the seams with gossip. Members find themselves in habitual polar roles such as thinker/feeler, action-taker/firefighter, or victim/villain.
Over time, these patterns form into habitual grooves, and the team reaches a status quo of codependent dysfunction. Be wary of teams like this. Those habitual grooves suck you in and are hard to break.
Unconscious + Disconnected = Friction
A team that is Effective but Unconscious and Disconnected has a clear vision and achieves its goals, but is permeated by drama and disconnection.
This team gets shit done, but has to do so against the counterforces of drama, politics, disconnection, disorder, and misunderstanding. These require a mountain of effort to overcome, and often leave the team’s participants exhausted.
This team is characterized by Friction. Effectiveness happens at the expense of the individuals who grind against the teams drama and disconnection.
These teams often suffer from burnout and high turnover, as effectiveness comes at a high cost.
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If you find yourself on a one leg team, slow down and listen. Can the team identify and discuss their issues? I’ve found that one leg teams that are highly motivated to improve their areas of weakness can do so rather quickly.
On the other hand, one leg teams that avoid discussing their issues, don’t believe they have issues, or don’t want to change often have a gravitational pull toward their current dysfunction. If this is the case, know that another long journey likely awaits.
Two Leg Scenarios
In the graphic above, two leg teams are represented by the outermost areas of each circle where there is no overlap. These teams operate effectively along two dimensions (have two legs of the stool) but struggle with one. They are generally operating well, but expending unnecessary energy due to their area of dysfunction.
Below, I’ll include the leg of the stool that is missing in the headline. In the first line of each section, I’ll italicize the two legs that are present.
Given that these teams are only facing a single problem area, I’ll also share a brief bit about the opportunity available to that team to overcome its challenges.
Ineffective = Failure
A team that is Conscious, Connected, but Ineffective feels great to be on. The team communicates openly and tackles drama as its arises. But something is missing.
Despite interpersonal efficacy, the team doesn’t achieve its goals. The team can’t persist as is without ultimately ending in failure.
This usually happens on teams that value the experience of their people so highly that they’re afraid to shake the boat by instating goals and accountability.
The opportunity for this team is to face their inefficacy head on. Beyond their fear lies an even deeper level of connection and consciousness available to them through Shared Vision and Accountability.
Disconnected = Disorder
A team that is Conscious and Effective but Disconnected is characterized by isolation and unnecessary coordination challenges (disorder).
While this team mitigates drama and achieves its desired outcomes, it does so with the unnecessary friction of disconnected disorder.
This most frequently happen on teams that overvalue efficiency, viewing connection as frivolous and inefficient.
The opportunity for this team is to face their disconnection and disorder head on, and see that a greater level of connection greatly accelerates Collective Velocity (and is therefore, over the long-run, more efficient).
Unconscious = Drama
A team that is Unconscious, Connected, and Effective, is a team that simply has a lot of drama. This team communicates and hits its goals, but lives in a world of blame, gossip, and politics.
Many teams live here for a long time. Drama results in a nice fight/flight/freeze neurochemical cocktail that can be addictive.
Teams in this state often have a sense of this being “totally normal” and as “good as it gets”. “What’s there to work on? Aren’t drama and politics the status quo everywhere? Asking for any more is unrealistic and greedy.”
The cost is the unnecessary friction of drama.
The opportunity for this team is to tackle drama head on to unlock a new level of Ease.
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If you find yourself on a two leg team, congratulations! You’re actually in a pretty good spot. You can be focused in your work.
Once again, see if everyone can agree on the team’s challenges and if there’s a willingness to work on them. If not, start with generating buy-in. If you can get everyone to agree on collective areas of weakness and willing to work on them, the journey becomes much easier.
Three Legs: The Complete Stool
Welcome to the sweet spot. This team is sitting on a complete stool!
A team that is conscious, connected, and effective operates in non-reactive, non-triggered states (outside of drama), communicates at the right frequency and with a deep knowing of each other as people, and sets clear goals and stays focused on how best to achieve them and learn when they don’t.
This is the dream team.
You can refresh yourself on this team by rereading the story of second team in a tale of two leadership teams.
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Three leg teams are great to be on, but they’re not free from work. Being conscious, connected, and effective requires devotion to those things as ideals. It is a constant pursuit and requires everyone on the team to be committed to maintaining the standard.
Wrapping it up
At this point, you should be well equipped to identify the state of any leadership team you encounter. To practice:
Imagine past leadership teams that you’ve worked on or under. Where were they in the graphic above?
As I reflect on my own experience, I can easily see I was on teams that were:
Disintegrating (Unconscious, Disconnected, Ineffective)
Codependent (Connected, but Unconscious and Ineffective)
Ineffective, but with members who were unconscious (creating codependence in their relationships) and members who were unconscious and disconnected (creating friction)
If you’re on a leadership team now, do the same thing for your current team. Where are you? Be brutally honest.
Save it if you do. Next week I’ll show you what do about it in part III: Saying No to Drama, Disorder, and Failure: Creating a Great Leadership Team
P.S.
If you’re interested in creating a more conscious, connected, and effective leadership team, I’m here to help.
I support leadership teams in becoming more conscious, connected, and effective through 1-on-1 coaching and facilitating experiential workshops that transform team consciousness, connection, and effectiveness in days instead of quarters.
If you’re interested, reach out.