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What Is the First Team Concept?
The First Team concept, from Patrick Lencioni: a leader's first team is their peers, not their direct reports. What it means, why leaders miss it, how to start.
The First Team concept, articulated by Patrick Lencioni (2012), is the idea that true leaders prioritize supporting their fellow leaders over their direct reports. Your “First Team” is your peer group at your own level (the other C-level executives, if you are a C-level executive), and your direct reports are your “Second Team.” Leaders are responsible to their peers more than to their own teams, because a leadership team that puts each department first builds the silos it complains about.
Leadership and the First Team Concept
During my regular consulting with people on teams around the world, an “old” concept (2012) has started re-surfacing again around the topic of, “The First Team.”
This sounds really cool and modern agile leaders are probably thinking, “YES! THAT’S WHAT WE DO!”
First — no pun intended (smile) — watch the following video from Patrick Lencioni (2014). Watching this video takes less than 3 minutes and I guarantee you’ll notice something important in that short amount of time.
First Team: C-Level, VP’s, & Senior Management Team
If you are on a senior leadership / management team and you are talking about your own “First Team” as something that exists, you might notice the following things happening:
- As a C-Level executive, I spend time working with people who report to my direct report who report to their direct report (read as: I get into the weeds)
- As a Vice President, I spend time working with people who report to my direct report (read as: I get into the weeds)
- As a Senior Leader, I spend time working with my direct reports (read as: I get into the weeds)
- Some variation of the above….
[ spoiler alert for you / your senior leadership team ]
You’ve missed the point of the “First Team” concept.
Who is YOUR First Team as a Senior Leadership Team Member?
Your “First Team” includes your peers on the Senior Leadership Team.
- So, if you are a C-Level, your first team includes the other C-Level executives.
- And. If you are a Vice President, your first team includes your peers at the VP level.
- And. If you are some other “Senior Leader” in your organization, your first team includes your peers at that level.
Do You Already Have a ‘First Team’?
If you’ve already implemented a ‘First Team’ but still feel a frustrating gap between your leadership’s alignment and your real business results, you are not alone.
That’s a sign of a deeper, systemic issue. I wrote this follow-up guide for you:
[Read Now] You Built a ‘First Team.’ So Why Is Leadership Still Misaligned?
The First Team Cascade (Why This Matters at Every Level)
You might hear Agile Coaches or Business Consultants talk about “Flight Levels” or “Fractal Geometry.”
Let’s skip the buzzwords and talk about reality.
The First Team concept is stacked.
If the C-Level Executives operate in silos, the Vice Presidents will operate in silos. If the Vice Presidents operate in silos, the Directors will operate in silos.
Dysfunction rolls downhill.
For Senior Leaders (Tough Love Time)
In a world where you are a C-Level Executive, Vice-President of Very Important Stuff, or another type of Senior Leader… PLEASE put on your big-kid pants and act like a First Team.
Why? Because your direct reports are watching you.
If you prioritize your department over the company, you are teaching your direct reports to prioritize their teams over your division. You are creating the very silos you complain about.
You cannot expect your “Second Team” (your direct reports) to collaborate if your “First Team” (your peers) is at war.
The “Fractal” Super-Power
This works in reverse, too. If you are a Manager or a Team Lead, you don’t have to wait for the CEO to fix this.
You can treat your peers as your First Team starting today.
When you align with your peers, you create a shield of sanity for your teams below.
How can you tell whether you have a First Team?
Ask yourself these three questions. Be honest, and don’t prep anyone first.
- When did you last change your own plan because a peer on your team asked you to? If you can’t remember, you are probably defending your department.
- Can you name your peers’ top priority this quarter, and what it costs your team? Sharing a boss is not the same as knowing each other’s trade-offs.
- When a decision lands, do your direct reports say “we decided” or “they decided”? They copy what they see you do.
If those answers are uncomfortable, you aren’t failing. You are seeing the gap. The audit below turns this into a score you can compare with your peers.
Recommended Reading: The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. (This is the manual for fixing the cascade.)
If you are one of those rare people who loves reading (as much as I do!), please take a look at first_team_book.mvizdos.com.
While it was published back in 2012, it still has some great material that can help you, your team, and organization successfully implement “The First Team” concept!
Move it to the top of your “to be read” management / leadership / business book list!
Related: Aligning with your peers is one of the habits in Focus. #deliver, my weekly newsletter on leading with less.
What next?
Do these two things, in this order:
- Watch the Lencioni video by yourself first.
- Share this page with your leadership team and talk about it together. The conversation matters more than the article.
Either one can be harder than it sounds. A leadership team that has quietly drifted into silos rarely fixes it by reading. Someone has to say it out loud, and that person is often the one with the most to lose.
That is the work I do with executive teams: helping leaders become a First Team, and connecting that team to the work below it. If you would like help with that, email me the situation, or read about my advisory work. I’ll tell you honestly if I’m the right person. If it is you, not the whole team, who needs a sounding board, three mentoring sessions ($500) is a smaller place to start.
Not ready for that? Start with the free audit below. It takes five minutes and shows you where you stand.
Free 5-minute self-assessment
Is your leadership team actually a First Team — or just people who share a boss?
Score your leadership team on five real-world scenarios — the Friday-afternoon crisis, the peer whose plan you quietly disagree with, the “they decided” announcement, the budget nobody gives up. Rate each one 1 to 5, add them up, and see where you land: First Team, Working Group, or War Zone. One page, sent straight to your inbox.
Already know the answer? Email me the situation.