What it actually means to lead the organisation together.
“Everyone in the room wants what’s best for the business. The problem is that everyone also wants what’s best for their bit of it.”
This tension sits quietly at the centre of most leadership teams. It rarely gets named. But it shows up everywhere – in how decisions get re-litigated after the meeting ends, through to the gap between what leaders agree on in the room and how they behave outside it.
It’s not a question of intent. Most senior leaders genuinely want to contribute to the whole. But intent and behaviour diverge when the system – the targets, the incentives, the identity – keeps pulling people back towards their function. And in that gap, collective ownership quietly disappears.
Most senior leaders arrive in a leadership team having built their careers on functional excellence. They became the go to person in their domain. Their credibility, their confidence, their identity – all rooted in knowing their area better than anyone else. That mastery is what got them to the table.
But the leadership team table asks something different of them. It asks them to carry responsibility not just for their function, but for the organisation as a whole. To treat problems that don’t sit neatly in their remit as their problems too. To support decisions that may not be ideal for their team, because they’re right for the business.
This is what Patrick Lencioni calls “Team 1” – the idea that your primary, most important team is the one you sit on, not the one that reports to you. It sounds straightforward. In practice, it cuts against years of identity, incentive, and habit.
What often gets in the way isn’t bad intent. Most leaders genuinely want to be good organisational citizens. What gets in the way is the quiet pull of functional loyalty and care; you built the team, you sit with them every day and you know the expertise inside out. But on the flip side, what it leads to is protecting headcount, defending priorities, advocating for their area when resources are tight. And the leadership meeting can easily become a negotiation between departments rather than a collective act of leadership.
And sometimes the system quietly reinforces this. When bonuses are tied to functional targets. When visibility comes from what your team delivers. When the CEO – however inadvertently – becomes the referee that every issue gets escalated back to. The message, despite the rhetoric, is: look after your own.
What collective ownership actually means
It’s worth being precise here, because collective ownership is often misunderstood. It doesn’t mean everyone is accountable for everything, or that decision-making becomes a committee exercise. The CTO still owns technology. The CFO still owns finance. Clarity of accountability matters.
What it does mean is that every member of the leadership team carries a genuine sense of shared responsibility for the whole organisation’s success – not just their slice of it. That distinction changes how decisions get made, how problems get framed, and how conversations happen outside the room.
In practice, it shows up in a few specific ways. A commercial leader who supports an HR-led restructure, even when it creates short-term disruption for their team. A finance leader who asks what a decision means for the business’s growth potential, not just its cost base. A leadership team that leaves a difficult meeting saying “we decided” – not “they decided.”
It also shows up in how problems are handled. One of the clearest markers of a mature leadership team is the instinct to say “this is our problem to solve” rather than “that belongs to operations” or “that’s a commercial issue.” The problem doesn’t need to be in your area for you to lean in.
None of this requires leaders to abandon their functional perspective – that expertise is exactly why they’re at the table. But it does require them to hold that perspective lightly enough to prioritise the organisation when it matters. That shift, from representative to steward, is the real transition.
What leaders can do differently to move towards collective accountability
Naming the dynamic is often the first step. Most leadership teams have never had an explicit conversation about Team 1 – about what it actually means to prioritise the organisation over the function. Raising that conversation, even briefly, can shift something.
It also helps to look at what the system is incentivising. If every performance conversation, every moment of recognition, every resource decision reinforces functional success, collective ownership will always feel like an aspiration rather than a norm. What gets measured shapes what gets valued.
And it’s worth paying attention to what happens after the meeting ends. Alignment in the room is one thing. How leaders talk about decisions outside it – with their own teams, in corridor conversations, in how they frame priorities – tells you more about the actual culture than anything said around the leadership table.
Reflect: Collective ownership begins with how you personally relate to the organisation, not just your function.
When did you last advocate for a decision that was right for the business, even when it created friction for your own team?
If someone watched your behaviour in leadership meetings, would they see an organisational leader or a functional representative?
Where are you currently protecting territory rather than leading the enterprise?
Review: A team that carries collective ownership behaves differently in the room – and outside it.
What current problem does your leadership team still treat as belonging to one function, rather than owning together?
How much does your team’s behaviour change between what’s said in the room and what happens afterwards?
What conversation has your team been avoiding because it would require someone to put organisational interest ahead of functional interest?
Systematise: Culture is shaped by what an organisation rewards, not just what it espouses.
What are leaders in your business actually being recognised and rewarded for – functional performance or organisational contribution?
Where does the system – targets, incentives, structures – quietly reinforce functional loyalty over collective ownership?
If the most senior leader stepped back for a month, would collective ownership increase or decrease – and what does that tell you?
