Is Politeness Undermining Your Executive Team Alignment? 4 Hidden Risks That Slow Growth
If your executive team meetings are polite, efficient, and oddly unsatisfying, you may have a growth problem you cannot see yet. Politeness is a good thing, until it becomes a crutch that lets people avoid the conversations that matter most.
In scaling tech and life sciences companies, that difference between being polite and being truly aligned shows up in predictable ways: decisions that get revisited, mixed messages cascading down, and high‑stakes initiatives that move slower than anyone expected. Research on executive teams shows that highly effective top teams that operate as a true collective are more likely to beat competitors on revenue growth, profitability, and total shareholder return (LeStage, Nilsson DeHanas, Gerend, & Narula, 2023).
Politeness is not the enemy. The risk is when “being respectful” becomes the reason executives stay vague, indirect, or conflict‑avoidant, especially at the very level that sets the tone for the whole organization.
5 hidden ways executive team politeness shows up
When politeness and politics replace real alignment, the patterns are rarely dramatic, but they are remarkably consistent. Team members respect each other’s talent and experience, yet the organization is not getting the full benefit of that talent because people are holding back.
1. Decisions look done in the room, then get undone later
The team appears to reach agreement in a meeting, but decisions are reopened in 1:1s, Slack or Teams threads, or follow‑up meetings.
Downstream teams experience whiplash as priorities quietly shift or sit in limbo, and “Didn’t we already decide this?” becomes a regular refrain.
Why it matters: When key calls are renegotiated out of view, execution slows, accountability blurs, and high performers start to doubt whether decisions will actually stick.
2. “Can’t‑miss” meetings replace clear decision rights
Calendars fill with “can’t‑miss” meetings because leaders fear that sending a proxy or declining means losing influence.
Real conversations move into side channels, and proximity to decision‑makers starts to matter more than the plan the team agreed to together.
Why it matters: Energy drifts from execution to internal lobbying, and teams lower in the organization hesitate to move forward without explicit executive airtime.
3. Mixed messages cascade down, and escalations pile up
Senior leaders leave a meeting believing they are aligned, but each function translates priorities differently for their teams.
Everyday friction gets pushed up the line, turning into escalations and rushed decisions instead of local problem‑solving.
Why it matters: People spend more time reconciling contradictions than creating value, and what looks like a performance issue in the middle is often an alignment issue at the top.
4. Real feedback at the top gets watered down
Executives are generous with praise but vague or overly diplomatic with one another when something needs to change.
Behavioral and decision‑making patterns go unspoken, so the same issues reappear quarter after quarter.
Why it matters: Without specific, actionable feedback among the executive team, you cannot shift the very habits that shape culture, engagement, and execution across the company.
5. Strategy is clean on slides, messy in execution
On slides, the strategy is crisp and compelling; in practice, legacy projects, pet initiatives, and local priorities keep going, because no one wants to say “stop.”
Over time, the gap between the strategy you present and what people experience erodes confidence that leadership is truly in sync.
Why it matters: Strategic initiatives slip, investments underperform, and top talent questions whether the company is serious about its stated direction.
A useful beacon: the high‑stakes initiative on your horizon
Executives often notice these patterns most clearly in reflective moments: after a major launch, a large project, or at the end of budgeting season as they look at what really got done versus what they thought they had agreed to. That is usually when the quiet realization surfaces: “We might be too polite at the top.”
There is also a positive beacon: you know a high‑stakes initiative is coming, such as a product launch, AI integration, or transformation, and your executive team will need to operate at its best. That is the moment to strengthen the team’s foundation instead of hoping existing habits will somehow hold under pressure.
In those windows, the most important question is not “Who is to blame?” but “What patterns have we created together, and do they still serve the company we are now?” Tackling “polite instead of aligned” dynamics at the top is not stirring the pot; it is good team hygiene and a direct lever for performance.
What aligned executive teams do instead
Aligned executive teams still care deeply about respect and relationships—but they are willing to trade short‑term comfort for long‑term clarity. Their habits look different in a few specific ways.
Aligned teams tend to:
Engage in real dialogue, then commit together
They build the skills and make space for honest, rigorous dialogue in the room, so people can bring what they truly think and what they are worried about, not just what sounds agreeable.
Once a decision is made, they treat it as a shared commitment rather than something to quietly revisit on the side.
Name and revisit their operating patterns
They regularly step back to look at how they make decisions, communicate, and follow through as an executive team, not just what they are doing strategically.
They ask, “Which of our patterns still serve our growth, and which are costing us speed, trust, or talent?”
Hold one another accountable in real time
They give specific, actionable feedback to peers at the top instead of letting frustrations build.
They treat feedback as part of their responsibility to the organization, not as a personal critique.
Align strategy with actual behavior
They prune initiatives that no longer fit and are explicit about what will stop to make room for what matters most.
They ensure that what people experience in their day‑to‑day work matches the strategy on the slides.
Research on executive teams and leadership engagement supports this picture. Bain’s study of more than 1,000 companies links highly effective executive teams with outperformance on revenue growth, profitability, and total shareholder return (LeStage et al., 2023). Longitudinal studies on engaging leadership and leader–member relationships connect leader engagement with higher team engagement, stronger performance, and lower turnover intentions (Gutermann et al, 2017; Mazzetti & Schaufeli, 2022).
How Malida Advisors supports executive team alignment
Malida Advisors helps executive teams get aligned at the top, equipped to lead, and unleashed to grow, so you can turn ambitious goals into real, sustainable outcomes. Our work focuses on the patterns that matter most in complex, fast‑moving environments like tech and biotech.
Support for executive teams typically includes:
Executive Team Alignment
Structured sessions customized to the needs of your leadership team that surface trust, how the team actually makes and revisits decisions, communicates, and holds one another accountable.
Practical commitments and decision rigor you can test in the next 30 days, not just at an annual offsite.
Leadership development anchored in real behavior change
Programs built to address the leadership growth you need, designed to hard‑wire feedback, clear agreements, and ongoing reinforcement into the system instead of relying on one‑off trainings.
A focus on helping leaders practice new behaviors in the flow of work, so alignment at the top is visible all the way through the organization.
Organizational alignment
We partner with senior leaders to shape vision, mission, values, org design, and culture so that, across levels, functions, and geographies, your organization moves in sync to translate strategy into real, measurable outcomes.
Next step: sanity‑check your executive team’s alignment
If you see two or more of these patterns in your executive team—decisions getting undone, “can’t‑miss” meetings, mixed messages, watered‑down feedback, or strategy that looks aligned on slides but not in behavior—it is likely not an individual coaching issue; it is an executive team alignment issue.
If you are preparing for a major 2026 initiative and want a clear, honest view of your executive team’s alignment:
Schedule an executive team alignment consult to sanity‑check how your team is operating ahead of your next offsite, board meeting, or product milestone.
Start a conversation with Malida Advisors at hello@malidaadvisors.com or visit malidaadvisors.com to explore Executive Team Alignment Studio and leadership programs tailored to tech and life sciences organizations.
Selected research informing this perspective
Gutermann, D., Lehmann‐Willenbrock, N., Boer, D., Born, M., & Voelpel, S. C. (2017). How leaders affect followers’ work engagement and performance: Integrating leader–member exchange and crossover theory. British Journal of Management, 28(2), 299–314. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12214
LeStage, G., Nilsson DeHanas, S., Gerend, P., & Narula, I. (2023). At the top, it’s all about teamwork. Bain & Company. https://www.bain.com/insights/at-the-top-its-all-about-teamwork/
Mazzetti, G., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2022). The impact of engaging leadership on employee engagement and team effectiveness: A longitudinal, multi-level study on the mediating role of personal and team resources. PLOS ONE, 17(6), Article e0269433. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269433
Natasha Kehimkar is the CEO and founder of Malida Advisors. Natasha and her team help tech and life sciences companies build high-impact leaders and cohesive, future-ready teams. With nearly 30 years of leadership experience at firms like OpenTable, Data.ai, Pfizer, and Guardant Health, she’s known for guiding organizations through rapid change and transformation. Her insights and expertise have been featured in Harvard Business Review, Success Magazine, Forbes, and Business Insider.