The cherry trees in Central Park have hit peak bloom. Just a week ago, they were white. Now they’re deep pink. What struck me was not just the blossoms, but how many people stopped mid-run or mid-stride just to notice. Leadership teams rarely give themselves that same pause. But alignment often starts there: stopping long enough to notice what is actually happening, what has shifted, and what now needs to change.
Central Park: A week can change what you see
What Your Team Is Adapting To
You've built a solid company. Your team is talented, mission-driven, and genuinely wants to succeed together.
But something feels off.
In the all-hands, everyone nods.
In your 1:1s with direct reports, they tell you there's friction between departments.
The executive team agrees on strategy, but execution fractures.
People say they trust each other, but meetings feel guarded.
Decisions that should be clear end up ambiguous.
You think it's a people problem.
When it's really a leadership alignment problem.
And it's one that most leadership teams try to solve alone, in silos, often at odds with each other without fully realizing it.
Here's what I've discovered working with over 35 executive leadership teams:
The gap between what leaders say they value and what they actually model is where culture erodes.
Not the occasional slip-up.
The consistent, repeated gap between what leadership says and how leadership behaves.
I love how Leena Nair, Global CEO of Chanel, gets to the heart of role modeling:
“You cannot drive a behavior that you don't see exemplified by people at the top.”
Role modeling isn't about being perfect. It's about being conscious.
It's about your executive team getting aligned on what leadership looks like at your company.
Not in theory. In practice. In the room. Every day.
When leadership is fragmented or inconsistent, your people feel it. They adapt around the gaps. They protect themselves. And over time, your culture starts to break down.
CASE STUDY: What Changed When One CEO's Team Got Intentional
A national think tank brought me in when they faced exactly this. Senior leaders cared deeply about equity, shared power, and transparency. But internally, decision-making was opaque. Managers led in completely different ways. Feedback was inconsistent. New staff didn't know what to expect.
The mission was clear. The execution wasn't.
Over a year, the executive team and I did the hard work together:
We named the norms that mattered.
Actual behaviors to drive: conflict-forwardness, decision clarity, role transparency, direct feedback, and power-awareness.
The team modeled them together.
The CEO began showing up differently in meetings. Executive team members started saying what was true instead of being polite. They worked through real conflict in a way that showed the rest of the organization what was possible.
We built systems.
New manager training. Onboarding frameworks. Career development structures. So the norms didn't rely on luck or personality. They got embedded in how work happened.
The result wasn't just a healthier executive team. It was a healthier organization. The CEO reflected: "These sessions have been genuinely transformative for culture and trust."
When your leadership team really gets aligned, people feel the difference.
What This Work Demands
It's not a half-day offsite.
Culture doesn't shift in six hours. Most organizations underestimate the time and depth required. Real leadership team transformation happens over months, often 9-12 months minimum.
It's not about fixing people.
It's about naming the system dynamics that make it hard for good people to show up as their best selves. Then changing the system.
It's not something you can do in isolation.
Your executive team has to get intentional together. That means showing up, bringing the real tensions, the questions you don't have answers to, and the patterns you’re too close to see clearly.
It requires role modeling every single day.
It means consistently changing how you make decisions, have conversations, and share power.
If you're not willing to change how your team leads together, culture won't shift.
Culture is shaped by what leaders do, not what they intend.
You’re probably ready for Leadership Team Development if:
Your executive team is aligned in principle but fragmented in practice.
Your managers are leading inconsistently.
Culture keeps showing up as a symptom of decision-making and trust problems, and you know this cannot be solved by one offsite.
This is collective work: helping your entire leadership team get intentional about how they lead together, co-create the norms that matter, build systems that embed those norms, and model the culture you want.
This work is for CEOs and CHROs who know the issue is not one difficult person, but how the leadership team is functioning together.
If that is the season you are in, reply to this email with “leadership team development”, and I’ll send details on what an initial conversation looks like.
Because the question usually isn’t whether this work matters.
It’s how much longer you can afford to lead without it.
Warmly, Michelle
Cheat Sheet Library
P.S. As promised, here are my cheat sheets on feedback, supporting your team, navigating uncertainty, and more!
Whether you're looking to transform your own leadership or develop stronger leaders across your organization, let's talk about the culture change you're ready to create.
myfactor advises Fortune 500s, nonprofits, and founder-led ventures through critical leadership challenges. We develop leaders and teams who navigate complexity with less friction, execute with greater alignment, and build trust that strengthens culture and impact over time.