Thriving Senior Teams Build Thriving Companies
I help CEOs transform scattered leadership teams into unified forces equipped with modern tools to lead the company they're becoming, not the one they were.
The Double Challenge of Senior Team Effectiveness
You, like many of today’s CEOs face a critical reality: your senior team isn’t just misaligned—they’re also operating with yesterday’s playbook in today’s game.
| Current Reality | Potential Future |
|---|---|
| Strategic Misalignment: Leaders with different priorities pulling the company in conflicting directions | Unified Direction: A senior team moving in lockstep toward clear, shared priorities |
| Outdated Leadership Models: Approaches that worked when your company was smaller now create bottlenecks | Modern Leadership Practices: Approaches calibrated to your teams’ needs as well as your company’s current size and market position |
| Role Confusion: Executives unclear about how their roles must evolve as the company grows | Role Clarity: Each leader confident in their evolving contribution to company success |
| Tactical Overwhelm: Senior leaders stuck in day-to-day operations instead of strategic direction | Strategic Focus: Executives working on the business, not just in it |
| Command-and-Control Mindset: Micromanagement that stifles innovation and slows execution | Empowerment Culture: Teams throughout the organization equipped to execute without constant senior oversight |
| Legacy Processes: Meeting cadences and decision processes that don’t match today’s pace of business | Adaptive Systems: Governance and communication cadences that scale with your growth |
The Path to a High-Performing Leadership Team
Identify: Assess the current state of company health across five critical dimensions
Map: Map company symptoms to their root causes in the five key areas of team health
Implement: Implement targeted improvements in both team alignment and leadership capabilities
Experience
With 15+ years guiding senior leadership teams through transformation, I specialize in both aligning scattered teams and modernizing their leadership approaches for today’s business challenges.I’ve worked with CEOs across industries who faced the same challenge: talented executives using yesterday’s leadership playbook to run today’s company. Through my comprehensive assessment process and targeted interventions, I help senior teams both unify their direction and update their leadership toolkit.
“We have worked with Mike since we started the company over 15 years ago. Along the way, he provided the insight and guidance to us on the senior team so that we could take the company further than any of us thought possible. Of course, we put in all the sweat, sleepless nights, and investments. But without Mike, we would not have gotten here.” — Shameiz Hemani, CEO of Greenlight Consulting
Services
Thriving You
Thriving is an inside out game. Your team's ability to thrive starts inside you and each of them. More...
Thriving Senior Team
You and your senior team are more powerful than you imagine. And your thriving as a team is more critical to the success of the company than you know. So set aside time to build a modern, thriving senior team. The first move is often giving your team a boost with Ready Team One. See all my senior team services here.
Thriving Company
You are becoming a better and better leader. And so is your senior team. But sometimes it's easier and better for people throughout your company to work with expert outsider. More...
Book Your Leadership Team Assessment or Chat
You and your company should thrive. But how to start? A 60-minute Senior Team Assessment--or a simple chat--is a great first step. Select a convenient time here:
Download my Leadership Team Health Check
Is Your Senior Team Ready for Tomorrow’s Challenges?
Not every leadership team needs immediate intervention, but most show warning signs of misalignment or outdated approaches. Download this complimentary workbook to uncover:
The 5 Critical Dimensions of senior team health that determine your company’s future
A Self-Assessment Tool to quickly evaluate where your leadership team stands today
Impacts Inside Your Company of a senior team operating with yesterday’s playbook
Immediate Action Steps you can take to begin strengthening your senior team
This practical guide helps you identify whether your leadership team is aligned in purpose and equipped with modern leadership approaches—or if they’re holding your company back from its full potential.
In addition to the Leadership Health Check, you'll receive 4 short emails over the next few weeks containing leadership team transformation tips, modern leadership tools, and practical insights that you can immediately apply. After that, you'll continue to receive occasional brief, practical emails with the latest tools and insights to transform your team into a unified force and steer your company to its full potential. Unsubscribe anytime.
Why This Workbook Matters
As your company grows and evolves, the leadership approaches that worked yesterday often become limiting factors today. This workbook helps you spot the subtle signs that your senior team needs to transform—before they become major obstacles to your growth.
In Your Corner: Leadership Blog
Read it here on Substack.
© 1999-2025 by Michael Ehling. All rights reserved.
How I Help
About Michael EhlingFor over 35 years, I've been obsessed with one question: Why do talented leadership teams and the companies the run so often fail to reach their potential?The answer became clear through my work with dozens of CEOs and their senior teams: Even the most brilliant individuals can't drive exceptional results when they're operating with misalignment and outdated leadership approaches.My StoryMy journey began when I witnessed in companies--ones I cared deeply about--how the right leadership team could transform an organization, while the wrong dynamics could bring even promising companies to a standstill.I have developed both a proprietary assessment and a suite of modern leadership tools. The assessment examines five critical dimensions of senior team health - revealing precisely where your leadership team may be stuck in yesterday's playbook. The modern leadership tools equip you for tomorrow's challenges.My ApproachI focus exclusively on transforming leadership teams into cohesive forces that people respect, trust, and eagerly follow.My clients are CEOs who know their companies could achieve more - leaders who feel frustrated that their vision isn't being fully realized despite having talented individuals on their team.Through a proven three-step process, I help CEOs:- Assess the current state of your company's health across five critical dimensions- Map these symptoms to their root causes in the five key areas of team effectiveness- Implement targeted improvements in both team alignment and leadership capabilitiesThe TransformationThe result? A cohesive, forward-thinking leadership team that steers confidently with modern approaches, driving growth and innovation throughout your organization.No more misalignment. No more outdated leadership approaches. No more nagging feeling that your company's growth is being limited by how your leadership team operates.Ready to Transform Your Leadership Team?Book Your Leadership Team Assessment to pinpoint exactly what's holding your company back.
Thank You!
Thank you for the time to complete the surveys. That's everything from my end. If you have any questions, please contact me (see the email I sent you) or the recruiter or hiring manager you've been working with.In your corner,Michael--
Michael Ehling
strategic advisor & senior-team coach
balance coaching & consulting
Thank You!
Thank you for the time you spent to complete the surveys. If you have any questions about them, please contact me (see the email I sent you).In your corner,Michael--
Michael Ehling
strategic advisor & senior-team coach
balance coaching & consulting
Thank You!
Thank you for completing your surveys, the first part of your Leadership Loop program.You will find copy of your report and a debriefing workbook in your inbox.Next steps:
Book a 1-1 debrief: select a convenient time here to review your report with me.
Please use the workbook to prepare for our 1-1 meeting.
In your corner,Michael--
Michael Ehling
strategic advisor & senior-team coach
balance coaching & consulting
Ready Team One
Prepare Your Senior Team to Grow and Thrive
You are growing your business. And the rewards will be huge. But it’s exhausting because there is already too much to do, distractions and threats abound, and it’s hard as heck to get people–especially your senior team–to do the right things. So level up your company to grow by leveling up your senior team.
I will help you build and deliver a Ready Team One transformation plan. You will get:
Suite of planning and coaching sessions with me to identify key issues and build a custom plan
Team surveys and interviews with senior team members to build trust and robustness of the plan
Detailed analysis and recommendations to anchor the plan; though custom to you, common recommendations include steps and tools for clarifying roles, improving alignment, building trust, using modern tools for leading your team, focusing on “hell yes” work and parking the rest, and replacing bad meetings and emails with super-effective senior team cadence
Facilitated off-site strategy session with your senior team to learn, build trust, refine the plan, and launch it
Follow-up coaching session to help you monitor and adjust
I'd be delighted to chat with you about your team and how you can prepare them to lead and thrive despite distractions, threats, and busyness. You book a convenient time to chat using the button below.
For You and Other Leaders
Thriving Leader's (re)Launch - "Begin with the end in mind." - S. Covey. You have been successful and you see the opportunity to level up, do more, make a bigger impact. But at what cost? It took a lot to get here, there are lots of obstacles still in the way, and you wonder if you're up for it. So, do some reflection and relaunch your leadership so that you can not only take on the next challenges, you thrive as you do it. Keep in mind: every leader wonders if they have what it takes, every leader has what it takes but it's normally hidden by the day-to-day, okay leaders press on, good leaders dig in and find their thriving. Delivered with a suite of professional assessments and 3-5 one-one coaching sessions.
Thriving Leader's Journey - You see what's possible and it's exciting. But it's frustrating (sometimes even frightening!) because day-to-day fire fighting and old habits keep getting in the way. Therefore, see it as a journey: you are transforming into the leader you can and want to be. Invest time to regularly reflect, reconnect, recharge, reorient, and learn. Delivered with regular one-one coaching sessions over a period (typically a year at a time).
Thriving Leader's Shot in the Arm - You are mostly doing well and even thriving. But sometimes--especially when things are turbulent--you feel off or under water. That's when it's nice to have someone In Your Corner: private, committed, sounding board, thinking coach, and accountability partner. Delivered as ad hoc one-one coaching sessions.
Thriving Leader's Peer Learning - Looking around, you have an army of colleagues, friends, and family who care and want to help. But, somehow, it's still lonely at the top. Though they are well-meaning, your crew mates don't really know--or it's not appropriate to share--the things that you as leader have to contend with. That's why regular, confidential meetings with a group of like-minded, non-competing senior leaders (CxOs, other execs) is a game changer for Thriving Leaders. Delivered as membership in a MacKay CEO Forums group. Meeting 6 days (roughly every other month) and one 2-day retreat each year, you get and give experience, learning, and wisdom.
For Your Senior Team
Ready Team One - Start here. It's the long lever that generates the most initial momentum and wins. More here.
On-going Support - In support of your Ready Team One plan or as needed:
Thriving Senior Team Journey - Quarterly Focus, Strategy, and Team Building
Thriving in a Turbulent World - Purpose, strategy, and relevance
Build to Sell - Add value and solidify confidence for future buyers by preparing leadership teams and next-gen leaders
Senior Team Roles Refresh - Clarify each others' roles and priorities, balance commitment to the company and their departments, know how you deliver, together
Strategy Refresh - Refocus, restate, reinvigorate, and/or re-imagine the organization's purpose and strategy: re-ignites the teams care for and commitment to the mission.
For You, Team, and Company
Workshops + Coaching:
Coaching on Call - As your team grows, it can helpful to have a neutral-but-up-to-speed sounding board on an as-needed basis
Leadership Loop - Simple, repeatable 1-1 model for generating alignment, ownership, accountability, and growth
SweetSpot Career Planning - Know where you are going and how to get there in your career.
Thriving Mindset - Thriving comes from within each of us and it's simple to do. But we've inherited poor, non-thriving thinking habits. Therefore, we can--with some focus--apply modern thinking tools to anchor a thriving mindset.
Natural Business Development for Consultants and Other Service Pros - Simple, repeatable model for generating a flow of business from new and existing clients.
Meetings that Work - Set and run the right type of meeting every time
Hiring that Works - Bad hires cost too much. Get super clear on the role, what's needed for success in the role, and use assessments to see the unseen and match candidates to the role.
And you may want to work with trusted partners for:
Fractional CFO Support
Career Development of your Team as your Secret Weapon
Employment law help
Mergers, sales, acquisitions
and more