Picture the scene. You’re coming to the end of your regular leadership team meeting. You debated your current projects and initiatives, and there were differences of view, but when you declared the way forward, everyone nodded and agreed to the actions. You leave the meeting with a sense of relief.
Fast forward to next month, and no one has done what they were supposed to. Varying excuses arise, and you end up talking about the finer points of project implementation again. You finish the meeting in exactly the same place as you were two months ago.
Sound familiar? Leadership teams often leave meetings thinking they're aligned - only to see confusion, delay, or inaction unfold later.
The problem? You’re confusing the surface-level agreements in the room with true commitment to the cause.
Performative agreement
Surface-level, performative agreement looks like nodding, vague utterances of “yes” and “hmm”, interspersed with silence. Even when your leadership team disagrees, members may remain silent - whether through a desire to avoid conflict, a need to get an overrunning meeting finished on time or a lack of psychological safety.
You know it’s happening when you find you’ve got:
Repeated rehashing of the same issues.
A lack of ownership of actions once meetings end.
Side conversations or members going directly to the boss to complain
Decisions you thought had been agreed upon are overturned at a later date.
People don’t feel safe to disagree or challenge.
The result? Slow decision-making, a lack of collaboration, miscommunication, and ultimately low team productivity.
Real commitment means working through disagreement.
A productive team is one that is committed to the cause. For real commitment, everyone needs to be bought into the team’s vision. That involves active engagement, a healthy level of respectful challenge and a shared understanding of where you are trying to get to. Once you have this, you can create a culture where collaboration can flourish - one where a team is really working as a team and not just as a collection of talented individuals.
So, how do you get real commitment in the meeting, not just surface-level agreement?
Create space for honest debate, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Prioritise clarity over speed when discussing key topics
Check for shared understanding as you go along. Summarise the discussion and agreements made - not just at the end.
Encourage respectful challenge and productive ways to respond to challenge with curiosity.
Follow through and revisit decisions collectively.
For this to work, you need an agenda that’s not overpacked, a chair or facilitator who can bring out contributions and check consensus as you move along and a system for tracking agreements and actions and ensuring they are followed through. In other words - basic meeting hygiene!
When leadership teams embrace real commitment, not just agreement, they set the standard for the rest of the organisation. There is a real sense of alignment and commitment across teams up and down the business, leading to increased productivity.
If you want to find out more about how I can support your organisation with its individual and collective leadership challenges, then you’ll find more information here or get in touch to have a chat.