A new organization chart can be ready before its leaders know how to work together. That gap becomes visible when priorities collide, resources run short, or decisions cross team boundaries. In this case, a global automotive and mobility company’s new IT leadership group used a two-day working session to turn its redesign into practical agreements for leading together.
The risk sat between the boxes
The redesigned organization aimed to give teams more end-to-end responsibility, strengthen product alignment, and move decisions closer to the work. Yet confidential conversations with leaders showed that the newly assembled group did not yet operate as one team. Roles and interfaces were unfamiliar, while leaders needed to influence peers without relying on hierarchy.
The pressure points were concrete: competing demands on scarce budget and capability, board expectations, corporate approvals, portfolio processes, and escalation routes. The group saw that changing reporting lines would not settle who decides when priorities conflict, how autonomy stays aligned, or whether leaders would optimize for the whole system instead of defending their own area.
Build the minimum viable leadership system
The aim was not to settle every design question in two days. The group set out to create the minimum collaboration system it needed to start operating differently. Six connected areas shaped the work: a shared North Star and priorities; clear roles and interfaces; practical team behaviors and decision agreements; leadership in a matrix; alignment with stakeholders and dependencies; and communication with named accountability.
Relationships, trust, and collective responsibility formed the foundation. The team first agreed that it wanted a focused and adaptable technology portfolio, delivered with clearer priorities, empowered teams, and transparent decisions. That shared purpose helped leaders discuss what the organization needed from them together, rather than beginning from each person’s role.
Test decision rights on real work
Decision making and the new budget process needed more attention than the planned agenda allowed. Facilitators chose to stay with those issues rather than move on for the sake of the schedule. The budget discussion was real work the team needed to complete, not a training exercise, so progress in the room could serve both the transformation and the business.
One participant said the prioritization work saved two weeks. The discussion also brought decision boundaries into focus, including technology choices, vendors, people decisions, and the relationship between operational leadership levels. A practical principle emerged: operational leaders should decide unless an agreed strategic boundary is crossed. The group moved from discussing empowerment in theory toward language that signaled ownership: the decision belonged to the team, and the team would use its judgement.
Make empowerment observable
Delegation only works when senior leaders allow others to exercise authority under pressure. The sponsors committed to coaching rather than reclaiming control, protecting delegated decisions, and inviting colleagues to call out moments when they failed to honor those commitments. That made empowerment something the group could observe in its daily choices.
The team also adopted Teamitis, Co-Exponential’s term for the quiet gap between what a team can achieve and what it actually delivers. Used as a shared prompt rather than a diagnosis, it gave members permission to name unhelpful patterns and reset together. The group left with actions, owners, communication responsibilities, and a later accountability session to check what held up in practice.
What leaders can take into a redesign
A new structure does not create new habits. Leaders need a shared purpose before they can make clear trade-offs, and decision rights become real when a genuine contested choice is on the table. Empowerment also needs protection from above, especially when the stakes are high.
Most of all, use the work already waiting for the team as a place to build its leadership system. Ask what happens when budgets tighten, stakeholders disagree, or teams need the same capability. The test of a redesign is not whether people leave a workshop aligned; it is whether they make different decisions when the pressure returns.
