The Unglamorous Work That Actually Changes a Team

This week's thinking is brought to you by my kitchen garden. If you've been following along on my socials, you'll know I've been right into building a kitchen garden on our property. I've been sourcing organic seedlings at our local farmers market, my husband has built the garden beds and incredible space. I've lovingly watered, and tended to the garden over the last couple of months, and I swear, every morning when I go to check on things, something new is blooming. It's incredible.

Earlier this week, I was very excited to see my purple carrots looking like they were just about ready to be harvested. 

So, I gave it a few more days. My excitement was building, I was hyping the kids up, we were looking at what we could make with purple carrots, or if we were going to eat them raw. 

And then, yesterday I bit the bullet, pulled the plug, dug in (so many puns), and was surprised.

I was reminded of a saying one of my favourite people, Toni Everard said years also; "the map is not the terrain". 

What looked good on the surface, was not the high yield I was expecting.

High performance is often presented as exciting. Big goals. Bold moves. Breakthrough moments. The highlight reel of leadership success.

There's a moment in every leadership team where the conversation shifts. Over the last 3 months I've been working with several senior leadership teams on shifting their high performance. It starts with a conversation, and a realisation that accountability is a serious game.

The teams who sustain high performance over time rarely look dramatic. Their success is built on behaviours that are quiet, consistent, and decidedly unglamorous. While everyone is getting excited about what they can see, these teams are focus on what's happening below the surface.

The Problem is Rarely a Lack of Effort

Most senior leadership teams are not stuck because people don't care, they care deeply. They want to do good work, great work even. They're committed to the organisations, the customers, the mission and their teams. But care along doesn't create momentum. A team can be full of good people and still avoid the conversations that matter. A team can be highly capable and still lack clear ownership. A team can be polite, nice, well-intentioned will still not collaborating fully and quietly allowing a drift to happen.

The uncomfortable part, the shift that has to happen, that step in to courage is understanding that; Niceness isn't the same as trust, That harmony isn't the same as alignment, that activity it's the same as execution.

And without Accountability, even the best strategy becomes another document everyone agrees with and nobody truly drives, or owns.

The Leadership Trap: Carrying the Standard Alone

When work with teams, there's often a moment, sometimes it's before we work together and that's what's triggered the decision, or sometimes its right in the middle of us working together... A senior leader will realise they're the only person consistently holding the line.

They're the only one reinforcing the standard. They're the only one naming the gap, they're only one following up, re-explaining expectations, and trying to move the team from agreement into action.

At first it looks like strong leadership, overtime it starts to feel like carrying and caregiving.

When left unchecked, if it goes on for too long it can become a strong problematic dynamics where a leaders is no longer leading a team of peers. They're managing the emotional load, the accountability and execution for everyone else.

It begins to look like resentment. It's not sustainable.

The question these leaders need to ask isn't "How do I get this team to understand the standard." a better question is "who can carry the standard with me, and who will I always have to carry?"

Some Leaders Need a Runway, Others Need a Resolution.

A leadership reset, team offsite, strategy day (whatever you name it) often reveals three types of people. There are the leaders in the room worth investing in. They might need confidence, sponsor backing, clearer authority or a bigger runway. But the capability is there. These are the people to build around. There are the steady contributors. They may not need to be the future face of transformation, but they bring stability, maturity, and delivery. They need a clear lead and the right expectionas.

And then there are the harder calls. The people whose capability, self-awareness, behaviour, anda ttitunde no longer matches what the organisation needs next. This doesn't make them bad people, But the unglamorous part o leadership is not about protecting comfort. It's about building a team required for the work ahead. And sometimes the kindest thing a leader can for for an organisation is stop pretending a gap will close simply because everyone would prefer not to name it.

Accountability is Not Aggression

Now, I've been harping on about accountability for a few years not. And I truly believe it's soft skill in desperate need of a rebrand. One reason leaders avoid accountability is becuse they associate it with confirmed. But accountability is not aggression. Accountability is clarity with follow-through. It's the discipline of saying what matters, why it matters, who owns it, and what happens next. It doesn't have to be emotional, or personal. In fact the best accountability often feels calm. It might sound like" "we agreed this was the priority. What has shifted?"

"That decision has already been made. We're not reopening it unless there's new information."

"This behaviour is creating drag for the team." *make sure you articulate the behaviour "I need you to own this without me having to keep pulling it back." "we can't keep mistaking discussion for progress."

These aren't harsh words. This is leadership.

The Shift from Agreement to Traction

What I see happening often is that leadership teams are excellent at agreement (in the moment). The nod, they support the direction, the use the right languages, they understand the intent. All wonderful.

BUT traction requires more than agreement, it reaquires people to chant what they do after the conversation ends. They need to prioritise differently, make cleaner decisions, stop reopening old ground, hold their own teams to the new standard. raise issues early instead of letting it become a mess, and carry the message, even when it's inconvenient.

That's the point where leadership becomes visible, not what people say they support, but what they're willing to carry.

The Work is Unglamorous. The Impact is Not.

The work of resetting a leaderships team is rarely glamorous. It requires honesty, honest observation, clear decisions, direct conversations, consistent follow-through and a commitment to stop walking pas the things that keep slowing the team down.

On the other side of that unglamorous but fruitful work is a team that can move. A team that can make decisions and stick to them, a team that knows what matters, a team that hold the standard together, a team that can challenge without splintering a team that turns strategy into action.

This is where I see the performance shift. Not because everyone is suddenly working harder, but because the team sees themself as a unit, they stop leaking energy through ambiguity and avoidance. That's the unglamorous work that actually changes things.

If your team is busy, well-intentioned, and still not building the traction is needs, this may be the conversation worth having. because sometimes the breakthrough is not a new strategy. It's finally building a team that can carry it.

If you would like to book in a time to speak with Ally: CLICK HERE.

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Ally Nitschke is a best-selling Author, an award-winning Thought Leader and Speaker. She has been working with leaders and as a Leader for over 20 years.

She is on a mission to change the way we communicate at work, to lean into those uncomfortable conversations and lead with courage.

Ally is a Keynote Speaker at conferences, delivers Transformational Programs & highly engaging workshops as well as provides Executive Coaching.