How to turn your leadership team into a winning team? – 3 Tips for success

In many organizations, the leadership team easily becomes a purely administrative structure, where shared leadership doesn’t quite materialize. Instead of working as a team, leaders operate side by side – but not together. The outcome? Strategy doesn’t live in daily practice, decision stall, and employees experience leadership as fragmented. Individual-driven leadership erodes trust and prevents genuine collective leadership. 

The good news is, the direction can be changed! Shared leadership requires concious choices, a willingness to pause for reflection, deliberate development, planning, and a desire to grow. And what could be more important than learning to lead together with the very people who share responsibility for the organization’s future?

1. Build Psychological Safety 

In many Finnish leadership teams, decisions are rarely challenged – not because people don’t see risks or alternatives, but because psychological safety is lacking.

The result: playing it safe, shallow conversations, and a culture of perfectionism where mistakes and unfinished ideas are not tolerated.

Every member of the leadership team has a responsibility to build a culture where questions, doubts, and alternative perspectives are valued – not feared. 

2. Practice a Culture of Constructive Challenge 

If we want leadership teams that truly lead into the future, they must embrace a culture of constructive challenge. This does not mean arguing or point-scoring, but developing the skill to question decisions, present alternatives, and explore different perspectives in a way that strengthens collaboration rather than undermines it.

Challenge is not a test of individual courage, but a shared agreement that issues will be examined from multiple angles. A leadership team should make it explicit: here, you may (and must) challenge – but always constructively and respectfully. 

3. Lead Through Communication 

Communicative leadership is not about talking more – it’s about listening as much as speaking, being open even in difficult conversations, and building decisions together.

A leadership team where psychological safety and constructive challenge go hand in hand can make bolder decisions and truly create something new. And when the leadership team communicates openly and consistently, the entire organization follows its lead. 

These skills are not innate – anyone can learn them. But learning does not happen automatically. It requires conscious choices, planning, and a willingness to change.

PowerPoints and theories can inspire, but real learning happens only through practice, experimentation, and dialogue. It requires a space where trying, failing, and imperfection are allowed.

And what could be more valuable than growing together with colleagues – the very people with whom you lead the future of your organization? 

The future of leadership teams will not be built on defending positions or silos but on the team’s ability to be more than the sum of its parts.

In such teams, it is not status or title that leads, but a shared purpose and goal. It’s time to move beyond seeing the leadership team as a “necessary structure” and instead recognize it as a true team that leads the entire organization by example.