Part of every CEO’s job description should be to “build and develop a world-class executive team.” This is challenging because the qualities that typically earn senior executives a place on the executive team are necessary, but not sufficient, for peak performance on that team.

In recent survey of senior executives, 65% indicated their executive teams were experiencing a clash between functional and enterprise accountabilities. But less than 1 in 5 rated their executive teams as “very effective.”

So how does one build a highly effective executive team? There are 5 keys:

• Get the diagnosis right. The CEO or top leader at an organization should understand what drives individual executive-team members and what makes them work — or not — as a group.
• Get the leadership mental model right. Executive team members must have an explicit understanding of, and agreement with, what it means to lead at the enterprise level. Senior executives must understand that their role on the team goes beyond functional responsibilities.
• Get the mindset right. For seasoned leaders, the executive team shouldn’t represent the summit of their professional development, but rather a new challenge that requires them to continue to learn and grow. They must also bring this perspective to their direct reports and others they interact with, encouraging them to develop beyond their technical expertise.
• Get the interactions right. Creating explicit “interaction rules” to guide how team members interact with one another is critical to building effective teams. Members of the executive team must be transparent, vulnerable, and comfortable learning in public; they must also have strong communication skills.