The most important decision leadership teams make is how to invest their most valuable resources: Time and Energy. It is easy for leadership teams to get overwhelmed with the need to respond to the constant barrage of urgent issues.

The best leadership teams focus their energy and time on the organization’s most strategically important responsibilities.

1. Providing Strategic Direction

A common purpose, values, goals, and priorities give the organization its identity and direction. These commonalities unite employees’ daily efforts to advance shared goals. Providing the clarity of “who we are”, “what we do”, and “how we do it” creates an environment that enables laser-like focus in pursuit of the organization’s most important goals.

2. Aligning Resources

The leadership team is responsible for ensuring everyone has a clear strategic picture of who is accountable for what, the extent of each group’s authority, and how the organization must work together to accomplish common goals. In addition, they are responsible for ensuring the organization has the functional structures and talent in place to deliver on its strategic priorities.

If done correctly, this sets up managers and teams to create a direct alignment to the vision, mission, organizational values, and strategic goals within their daily workday.

3. Problem-Solving Key Issues

The best leadership teams are great at problem-solving. Resolving important issues that get in the way of accomplishing strategic goals should be the central component of a leadership team’s recurring meeting focus. Leadership teams need to build in dedicated time to assess the progress of strategic goals and a simple and inclusive process for problem-solving.

4. Living The Values

One of the biggest mistakes a leadership team can make is thinking that shared values are nice to have rather than an all-important necessity. The truth is that shared values are vital to helping employees find purpose at work and improving employee well-being, motivation, retention, and performance. There is nothing more disparaging for employees than having a leader that demonstrates behaviors that do not align with their values, and no one seems to care.

The best leadership teams understand that their highest calling is to build a culture that enables employees to feel heard, valued, and capable of doing their best work.