Each executive knows what good work looks like within their part of the business. The trouble starts when each person on the senior team applies their own separate set of rules.
A leadership team can leave a meeting convinced that everyone heard the same decision. By the time it reaches the rest of the company, there are four versions of it. Does this sound familiar?
Operations tells its team to move immediately. Finance says the numbers still need another review. HR describes it as a direction the team is considering. Sales keeps doing what it was doing because no one made it clear that anything had changed. Everyone attended the same meeting. Everyone walked away with a different understanding of what happened.
I see this often with experienced, capable leadership teams. Each executive runs a strong function and knows what good work looks like within that part of the business. The trouble starts when each person brings a separate set of rules to the senior team.
They have different expectations for how quickly a decision should be made, how much information is enough, when feedback should be given, and what it means to support a decision after leaving the room.
Employees end up doing the translation.
Employees experience one leadership team
People across the company rarely think, “That’s just how the CFO operates,” or “That communication problem belongs to Operations.”
They experience the senior team as one group. They notice when leaders give conflicting direction, when a decision quietly changes, and when the CEO’s opinion matters more than the agreement made in the meeting.
They also learn how to protect themselves.
One leader wants early drafts and frequent updates. Another expects people to work independently and bring back a complete recommendation. A third steps in quickly when something goes off track. Someone else assumes silence means everything is fine.
Any one of those approaches can work. The confusion comes when employees need to guess which rules apply, especially on work that crosses departments.
They start checking with several leaders before acting. They create different versions of the same update for different audiences. They wait for the person with the most authority to weigh in, even when someone else supposedly owns the decision.
Work slows down, and very little of that delay appears on a project plan.
Meetings reveal where the rules differ
You can usually see the pattern during a senior team meeting. A cross-functional issue comes up. Each executive speaks from the perspective of their own function, which makes sense. The conversation is thoughtful, people raise legitimate concerns, and the group eventually reaches what sounds like a decision.
Then the decision starts to soften.
One leader asks for another analysis. Someone reopens a concern that appeared settled. Another person agrees during the meeting, then raises objections privately afterward. By the next meeting, the group is discussing the same issue again.
The CEO becomes the person who has to interpret what the team decided, settle the disagreement, and tell everyone what happens next.
This usually gets called a communication problem. Communication is part of it, but the team also lacks shared rules for closing decisions, raising new concerns, and supporting the outcome once everyone leaves the room.
Pressure makes those gaps more visible. An enterprise decision may create additional work for one function or force a leader to absorb a cost they didn’t choose. That leader needs a clear way to voice the concern without quietly slowing the decision down.
Otherwise, the company develops a second decision-making process through hallway conversations, private meetings, and one-off conversations with the CEO.
Peer issues keep traveling upward
A similar pattern shows up when executives talk to the CEO about one another instead of speaking directly.
Sometimes the CEO genuinely needs to know. More often, a senior leader is asking the CEO to handle a conversation they don’t want to have with a peer. Or they are concerned about the outcomes (which stems from fear).
The immediate problem may get solved, but the team learns a bad habit. Each time tension appears, someone sends it upward rather than addressing it across the table.
Soon the CEO is resolving missed commitments, unclear ownership, communication breakdowns, and personality conflicts between people who are fully capable of having those conversations themselves.
Peer accountability can sound very ordinary:
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“We agreed on Friday. What changed?”
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“My team heard something different from yours.”
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“This has come back to the group 3 times. Who has the final call?”
Simple language helps, but leaders also need permission and an expectation to use it. Otherwise, even experienced executives can spend months politely working around one another.
Build one playbook for the moments that matter
A shared leadership playbook does not need to cover every possible situation. Start with the points where the team’s different habits create the most confusion.
Discuss a few practical questions:
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How do we know when a decision is final?
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How should someone raise new information after a decision?
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What message will every leader carry back to their team?
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Which peer issues should be handled directly?
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When should the CEO step in?
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Which behaviors will we address every time?
The answers need to be specific enough to use on a busy Tuesday afternoon.
“Communicate openly” and “assume positive intent” sound good on a slide, but they don’t tell someone what to do when a peer misses a deadline or gives their team conflicting direction.
Choose one recurring issue and test the playbook there. It might be a decision that keeps returning to the agenda, a cross-functional project that has stalled, or a problem that repeatedly lands in the CEO’s office.
Then watch the next 30 days. Are decisions staying closed? Are leaders giving their teams the same message? Are peers speaking to one another sooner? Is the CEO spending less time translating and refereeing?
This becomes your Trusted Leadership Operating System. That is where team alignment becomes visible.
Consistency builds trust
I developed the Trusted Leadership Operating System® to give leadership teams a common way to make decisions, communicate expectations, address behavior, and handle disagreement.
The real test comes when the decision is inconvenient, one department has to carry more of the burden, or a leader has to support an outcome they argued against. Those moments tell employees far more about the culture than any set of stated values.
A company can have strong individual executives and still have a senior team that is difficult to follow.
When leaders agree on how they will operate together, employees spend less time interpreting mixed messages. What will you try this week?
About Julie Holunga
Julie Holunga works with organizations navigating growth, change, and increasing leadership complexity. She is the creator of the Trusted Leadership Operating System, a framework designed to move leaders beyond surface-level training into clarity, credibility, and connection that endures. Drawing on neuroscience, Julie helps leaders understand the patterns and behaviors that directly influence trust, communication, and performance. With an MBA, PCC certification, and 20+ years in law, finance, and professional services, she blends business acumen with evidence-based leadership development.
This article is provided as a complimentary resource by Julie Holunga. Statements of fact and opinion are the author’s responsibility alone and do not imply an opinion on the part of CPA Crossings officers or members. The information contained herein does not constitute accounting, legal, or professional advice. For actionable advice, you must engage or consult with a qualified professional.
