Why Alignment at the Top Matters: First Teams Build Enduring Companies

Whether your company has 10 people or 1,000, leadership sets the tone. That doesn’t mean we have all the answers, but it does mean we need to show up with clarity, consistency, and a commitment to doing the Work. And above all, we have to be trustworthy and reliable — because our teams are always watching.

Sure, people look to us for direction, but more than that, they want to follow someone with a clear, compelling vision. After all, titles matter less than the leaders who’ve earned them.

But earning trust doesn’t mean your deepest allegiance lies with every one of your people. If you’re serious about building something that lasts, your company comes first and your colleagues on the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) come second. Always.

I realize that might sound counterintuitive. Most of us are wired to fight for our people at every level — to advocate, protect, and lead well. That’s what good leaders do, right? The truth is, truly great leaders do something else entirely.

It might be controversial, but if you’re serious about scaling, putting your company first is nonnegotiable. In this piece, I’ll explain why, using one of my favorite frameworks, the Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

Putting Team Health First

I reference Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team often (both in my own coaching practice and here at Ninety) because team health sits at the core of enduring companies.

One of the biggest mistakes early-stage founders make is overlooking the concerns and well-being of their team members. If you want to do Work that matters, alignment isn’t optional. It has to run up, down, and across your organization from the start. That’s why we regularly run the Five Dysfunctions of a Team exercise at Ninety. It helps build and sustain the kind of culture where real growth can take root.

Lencioni defines a “First Team” as the group that makes the calls on decisions impacting the whole company. Everyone else — department heads, Core Function teams, individual contributors — belongs to a “Second Team.” In a healthy organization, the First Team is always the Senior Leadership Team (or your C-suite if you have one). That’s where alignment has to start.

If there’s a conflict between what the SLT needs and what a department needs, the SLT should win every time. You can’t lead well if your peers can’t trust you to put the company first. Prioritizing individual teams or contributors over cross-functional alignment breeds silos — and silos break down both communication and trust.

Why Some Leaders Struggle

I once had a hard conversation with a department head about this very issue: putting their team ahead of the company. I told them it felt like their loyalty leaned more toward their people than the bigger picture, and they admitted I was right.

Their response was thoughtful and came from a place of real care — they saw team well-being and company performance as mutually reinforcing. And while I respected that, it missed something essential to organizational greatness: First Teams come first.

The First Team philosophy isn’t about ignoring your departments or individual teams. And it's certainly not about caring less deeply for your team. These two ideas have zero conflict. It’s about aligning with your peers to serve the whole organization. That kind of alignment is what ultimately makes productive, humane, and resilient companies that can stand the test of time.

Because if the SLT isn’t the company’s true First Team, it’s not a team at all. It’s just a group of advocates protecting their own turf. And when that’s the norm at the top, the rest of the company follows suit.

How to Build an Effective First Team

When a First Team truly works effectively, it changes everything. I saw this firsthand during our first zero-based budgeting review at Ninety. It led to one of the hardest calls I’ve had to make: parting ways with team members we deeply value. But if our SLT had been more loyal to their departments than to each other, those decisions likely wouldn’t have happened — or would’ve happened too late. Alignment at the top gave us the courage and clarity to act in the best interest of the whole, even when it hurt.

So how do you build a high-trust company with a First Team that can lead with unity and make the hard calls for the good of the whole? Here’s where to start:

1. Build an agreements-based culture: The first step is building an agreements-based culture rooted in your organization’s Focus Filters. This kind of culture doesn’t eliminate hard choices, but it gives you a clear and objective framework for making them and helps your people understand not just what you’re doing but why.
2. Create consistent feedback loops: Prioritizing your SLT doesn’t mean disconnecting from your departments. It means advocating for them from a place of alignment. Build consistent feedback into your day-to-day through tools like 1-on-1s, Scorecards, and Org Charts. You don’t have to choose between being informed and aligned. You need both.
3. Identify and target the real issues: If you often feel caught between your team and your peers, ask: Is this a communication gap or a cultural one? When your SLT shares Core Values and demonstrates Competency, Commitment, and Capacity, conflict should focus on execution. But if your team’s feedback sounds like “no one cares” or “what’s the point,” that’s more than frustration. It’s a warning sign that there are deeper cultural issues.
4. Reaffirm your Focus Filters: When tensions rise (and they always do), ask yourself whether you’re truly aligned or just acting like it. Great teams treat misalignment as a sign to revisit their shared agreements. In a culture where those agreements are clear and reinforced, trust endures, even in conflict. 

Why First Teams Matter Most

Building a great company isn’t about choosing between loyalty to your departments and commitment to your company as a whole. It’s about doing what's right for the company, and this inevitably leads to aligning with your First Team on your shared vision — especially when the stakes are high. That kind of alignment doesn’t eliminate conflict, but it does give you a path through it.

I’ve seen this play out firsthand — when the Senior Leadership Team leads with unity, everything changes. It creates a culture where your people understand the why behind the decisions. Where silos shrink, trust grows, and your company moves forward with clarity.

That’s not just how you build alignment at the top — it’s how you build something that lasts.