Your team is stronger than you think. Once you know what to focus on

“I already invest heavily in my team. When is that not enough?”

Hein observes a recurring pattern: leaders tend to focus their investment on internal team dynamics. Trust, atmosphere, communication. This has value, yet the risk is that the environment fades from view.

Who are the three key stakeholders for whom the team creates value? What do they expect in the year ahead? If that is not clear, no form of teambuilding will resolve the underlying issue.

A leadership team does not exist to function well internally. It exists to create value for the organisation and the world around it. Without that starting point, you can invest in atmosphere for years without truly moving forward.

He explains: “Good relations are pleasant, yet they do not win competitions. I became world champion with someone who was not a close friend. What connected us was the shared goal and the belief that together we could achieve something that would not have been possible with someone else.”

“My team has capable people. Why do we still get stuck?”

“This may be the question I encounter most often. The people are capable, everyone works hard, and still there is friction. Discussions return without decisions being made. Tension arises about who is responsible for what. People pull in different directions. Meetings drain energy rather than give it.

When I look more closely, the cause is almost always the same: lack of clarity on three essential elements. Roles, what the team is expected to deliver collectively, and what the organisation requires from the team. That lack of clarity is the source of most of the underlying tension. People react to one another while the real problem lies elsewhere.

A strong leadership team is a group that is convinced it can achieve together what is impossible individually. Exactly that conviction, and the clarity it requires, is missing in many teams.”

“The world around us is changing rapidly. How do I help my team move with it?”

Hein recognises this as well: “That is the essence. A leadership team does not operate in a vacuum but in an environment that is constantly shifting. AI affects your business model. Markets evolve. Stakeholders change their expectations. The teams that succeed are not those with the best internal cohesion. They are the teams that adjust most quickly and most precisely to changing circumstances.

General Stanley McChrystal discovered this in Iraq. His troops were better equipped and better trained than the opponent, yet the US risked losing. Why? Al-Qaeda operated as a network of teams that shared information rapidly and made decisions without everything going through the top. McChrystal changed course: from hierarchy to teams with shared awareness and the space to act.

That principle applies to every leadership team. The question is not only how well the team functions internally, but how strong its connection is to what is happening around it, both inside and outside the organisation. And how quickly the team can adjust when the context shifts. Teams that succeed in uncertain times do not necessarily have the best internal dynamics. They are the teams that continuously align with their environment.”

“When should I, as a leader, intervene in my team and what does it bring?”

“There are three signals that show the moment has arrived,” Hein says. “One: your team’s performance falls short of what the organisation requires. Two: a major change is coming such as a new strategy, a merger, a new market and the team is not ready. And three: the outside world moves faster than you do as a team.

What does it bring? A team that knows what it must deliver collectively. That has a clear view of the key stakeholders and their expectations. A team that leaves meetings with more energy than when it entered. This is not an empty promise, but it does require a leader who is willing to look at where the real friction lies.”

How Odgers works with these principles

Ed van der Sande, Partner Leadership Services at Odgers, explains: “The principles Hein describes are what we see daily in the leadership teams we support. In our systemic way of working, we always look at the connection between mandate, context and roles. Not as a theoretical model, but as a practical way to understand what a team needs in order to function. By working from the outside in, clarity often emerges quickly. Where energy flows, where things stall, and what the organisation truly asks for. Movement follows naturally—not by adjusting relationships, but by reconnecting the team with its mandate and environment.”

Sebijn Bunt, consultant at Odgers, adds: “For us, systemic coaching is not a method to be applied but a posture. From that posture we can connect to what a team truly needs at that moment. It creates room to use different perspectives and interventions. Not because a model prescribes it, but because it fits what the system shows. It is not about following one approach, but about observing carefully and acting with agility.”

Three things you can do tomorrow

1. Define your external focus
   Who are the three most important external stakeholders for the team, and what do they genuinely need from you in the year ahead? Do this together. Most teams have never had this conversation explicitly.
2. Determine whether you are a real team
   What can you only achieve collectively—something impossible individually or in parallel? If you do not have a clear answer, you are not a team but a group of people working alongside one another.
3. Let energy guide you
   Does everyone leave your meetings with more energy than when they came in? If not: intervene, invite reflection, make it discussable. Each time, until the answer becomes yes.

Join us on 12 June at Odgers

On 12 June, we host a breakfast session for leaders who want to strengthen their leadership team in a rapidly changing world. Together with Hein Dijksterhuis and our systemic team coaches, we will explore:

• when a team truly functions as a team
• how to connect the team with what the organisation and its environment require
• practical tools and a framework you can apply immediately

You will leave with insight, energy and concrete guidance you can use in your own team. Register via event.nl@odgers.com.