Executive coaching during a scaling phase

A technology company in a critical scaling phase had a leadership team that was not working as one. CEO, CTO and CSO each held a different picture of what the company was building and who owned which decisions.

From the outside it was invisible. Operationally it created friction: teams below leadership received contradictory instructions, priorities were set and overturned, and decisions taken at one level were reopened at another.

The company needed its three most senior leaders at one table — with a shared answer to how they intended to lead together.

I ran structured executive coaching with the CEO, CTO and CSO — individually and together.

In the individual sessions I worked out where their pictures diverged and where the friction came from. In the joint sessions I facilitated the conversations that had been avoided because they were uncomfortable.

Out of that came a shared framework for decision rights between the three roles and a simple escalation model for genuine disagreement.

This work took place exclusively at the top level. Without delegation.

Alignment within the leadership team improved over the course of the mandate. Decision rights, escalation logic and shared working principles between CEO, CTO and CSO were clarified. The leadership team gained a more coherent basis for working together — and with it less operational friction from unclear ownership and contradictory priorities.