Leadership Team or Highly Paid Personal Assistants?

The Critical Difference That Could Be Holding You Back

As the leader of your organisation, you rely on your leadership team to drive results, carry the vision, and operate with autonomy and clarity. But here’s a tough question:

Do you actually have a leadership team … or have you unintentionally hired

a group of highly competent and highly paid personal assistants?

It’s not a throwaway question. It’s one that strikes at the heart of how your organisation operates, and how far it can go.

The Illusion of a Leadership Team

At first glance, you might think: “Of course I have a leadership team. I’ve got my COO, my Head of Marketing, my Finance Director, and a few others I trust.” But titles alone don’t make a leadership team.

A true leadership team is cohesive. They communicate frequently, challenge each other constructively, align around a common vision, and operate with shared clarity about what matters most. They don’t wait for permission. They don’t need every decision signed off by you. They hold each other accountable.

If that’s not happening in your business, then you may be surrounded by talented individuals who are working for you, not with you.

And that’s a problem.

Personal Assistants With Fancy Titles?

If your leadership team:

• Frequently comes to you for decisions they could make themselves

• Works in silos and rarely shares meaningful dialogue with each other

• Feels disconnected from the overall strategy

• Is unsure of the “why” behind their work

• Struggles to hold each other accountable

then what you might actually have is a collection of highly skilled personal assistants. Smart, capable, and well-intentioned, but ultimately reliant on you to function.

And when you are the glue holding everyone together, you become the bottleneck.

The Cost of Misalignment

When your team lacks clarity and cohesion, several things start to happen:

• Decisions get delayed

• Innovation stalls

• You get pulled into the weeds

• Stress and burnout increase (yours and theirs)

• You start to question their capability (and they start to question yours)

This isn’t just frustrating. It’s unsustainable.

So, What Does a Real Leadership Team Look Like?

A high-functioning leadership team operates like this:

• Shared clarity: Everyone understands the vision, values, strategic priorities, and success metrics.

• Aligned ownership: Team members know what they own and where they collaborate. They take initiative and make bold decisions.

• Open communication: They challenge ideas, share insights, and resolve conflict without needing you as a mediator.

• Collective accountability: Results aren’t just an individual’s responsibility, they belong to the whole team.

In this environment, you lead with your team, not above them.

Building the Team You Actually Need

If you suspect you’re leading a group of personal assistants in disguise, it’s time to make a shift. That starts with you. Because no leadership team becomes cohesive by accident, it happens by design.

Here are a few places to start:

1. Clarify the mission and strategic direction, then make sure everyone can articulate it.

2. Redefine roles and decision-making boundaries, and empower ownership.

3. Create space for the team to build trust and collaborate, not just with you, but with each other.

4. Invest in their growth as a team, not just as individual contributors.

Final Thought

You didn’t go into business to become the Chief Bottleneck Officer.

Your time, energy, and leadership should be focused on where you’re going, not constantly managing where you are.

So, ask yourself again:

Do I have a cohesive leadership team, or just a group of highly paid

and highly competent personal assistants in disguise?

The answer might just change the way you lead.

Thanks for reading.

Please share and comment below, and do let me know how I can help.