A final reflection on management teams that stop working

This series began with a simple observation: most management teams aren’t dysfunctional in obvious ways. They still meet. They still discuss. People show up, contribute, often with skill. But something isn’t working. Things drift. The team loses clarity. And slowly, without naming it, they stop functioning as a unit.

I’ve written about trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results, not as theory, but as patterns I’ve seen up close. What they all have in common is that sense of erosion. Not failure or collapse. Just the gradual lowering of pOn leadership dysfunction

A final reflection on management teams that stop working

This series began with a simple observation: most management teams are not dysfunctional in obvious ways. They still meet. They still discuss. People show up, contribute, often with skill. But something isn’t working. Things drift. The team loses clarity. And slowly, without naming it, they stop functioning as a unit.

I’ve written about trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results. Not as theory, but as patterns I’ve seen up close. What they all have in common is a kind of erosion. Not failure. Not collapse. Just the gradual lowering of pressure. The willingness to let things slide.

At that level, leadership dysfunction is not loud. It is polite. It is calm. It is the meeting that ends with soft agreement and no action. It is the follow-up that never happens. The hard conversation that always gets moved out of the room.

Over time, the team keeps moving. But it is no longer moving together. Everyone stays in their lane. No one raises the harder questions. And when results do not come, the team shifts inward. It talks about structure. It talks about process. But it no longer talks about purpose.

What makes this dangerous is not that it happens. It is that it becomes normal. And once it becomes normal, it is hard to challenge without sounding dramatic or difficult. But someone has to do it.

Someone has to ask why we are still debating a decision we already made. Someone has to name the standard that just slipped. Someone has to notice that the customer has not come up once in the last three meetings.

That is the work of leading a management team when it is no longer working. You hold the tension longer than others are willing to. You stay with the truth. You speak plainly, not to be right, but because otherwise, no one will.

This series was written for anyone who has felt that moment. The one where the room drifts, and you have to decide whether to go with it or stay where you are.

If you have done that even once, you already know what this work is.

And if this is where you are right now

If you are leading a team that is drifting, or sitting in one where no one is saying what matters, I would be glad to talk.

I coach leaders and management teams on exactly these problems. I work with people who are trying to restore clarity when the structure is eroding, to reintroduce tension where the room has gone too quiet, and to bring the company goal back into focus when it has been replaced by functional survival.

You can book a free call here: calendly.com/mansen66/jorn-1on1

There is no pitch. Just a real conversation. I live and breathe this work. And I am genuinely curious what you are seeing where you are.