In the weeks and months since America's momentous presidential election, the hype and intense media scrutiny has shifted from the drama of the campaign to Barack Obama's first presidential challenge: assembling his senior team. During a two-year stretch, the Obama camp's use of technology, ability to attract and motivate a winning team, and near-flawless execution of its strategy provided a wealth of winning examples and ideas for businesses to follow.

While it will be some time before we can begin to evaluate the success or otherwise of the Obama presidency, the way he has gone about selecting his senior team bodes well for the future. Obama appears to have recognized what every top CEO already knows: when confronting a mammoth set of tasks, it is essential to have in place a high-quality team, fully aligned and on board with your purpose, values, and vision.

Senior Team Alignment

When we talk about senior team alignment, what do we mean? It means each team member being committed to a common purpose, a set of shared values, and working toward a clearly articulated vision. In any senior team, whether in the White House or a start-up office in a garage, these three essential components: purpose, values and vision, must be in place.

Let's look first at the starting point: purpose. For a business, your purpose is your raison d'être — why you exist as an organization beyond just making money. Every business is created to deliver something of value to customers, or to make a positive difference in the community. In the case of Obama's administration it might be, as he has articulated during and after the campaign, to restore America's reputation in the world as a bastion of liberty, human rights and progress.

If the senior executive team members can't agree on this as a first principle, they are unlikely to find consensus on much else, especially during a crisis or when tough decisions need to be made. Even with a contentious issue on the table, an aligned senior team will be able to draw on its shared purpose to guide its decision-making process.

When we talk about the second essential component, values, we are referring to a guiding set of principles that all team members agree to operate by in their decision-making, how they run their departments and general behavior. A set of shared values would typically include integrity, creativity, commitment and mutual respect. Each senior team member must agree to operate by these core values. Why are shared values so important? Without them, you risk operating in a vacuum, where individuals will apply their own values. This in itself might not seem like a problem; if you have good people, they will apply good values. But with a discordant set of values in the C-suite, you invite constant conflict, with departments run like fiefdoms, each with its own set of values and own agenda.

The third essential ingredient for alignment is vision. Vision is a widely-used business term, but perhaps not so widely understood. Your vision is where you want your organization to be at some point in time in the future. Jim Collins in his best-seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't, uses the analogy of being “on the bus” to illustrate the appropriate place of vision in the senior team alignment process. “… first get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it.” For Collins, the bus is the organization's purpose. The right people are on board because they believe in this “bus” and the value it creates, and because they share the values of the other people on the bus. In tough times, such as a recession, natural disaster or international conflict, the bus may need to be diverted to a different destination. But with the right people on board, aligned behind the organization's purpose and values, the organization is able to adapt rapidly to the new circumstances, create a new vision, and agree on a new destination that takes these new conditions into account.

Obstacles To Senior Team Alignment

Breaking alignment down into three steps makes it look easy; it is anything but. Even the most well-intentioned teams can stumble on a number of different obstacles. Chief among those are unchecked egos, self-interest, lack of commitment to being in alignment, and highly competitive personalities. As commentators on the Obama cabinet have rightly observed, he could have a challenging time with the high profile team he has brought together.

When ego takes over, individuals think they are right all the time and that they are smarter than everyone else on the senior team. This mindset often prevents them from agreeing with other people or listening to other's ideas. This kind of entrenchment also prevents you as a leader from finding the consensus you need at the top level. It can also stall the decision-making process at a time when decisions need to be made quickly.

Leaders must also be wary of the self-focused individual: the high-performer whose principal concern is “what's in it for me?” These individuals are typically attracted to get on the bus by the compensation package, bonuses, and share options, rather than by the opportunity to contribute to a winning team or to make a difference. Compensation is not the right reason for getting on the bus. When personal interest and conflicting values infect the C-suite, they continually take the team off course as they argue for their own personal agenda.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to senior team alignment, however, is a failure on behalf of the CEO to demand commitment to alignment in the first place. The individuals described above — those with the unchecked ego and self-interest characteristics — simply do not place any importance on being aligned. They are more interested in meeting their own needs than being committed to the organization's purpose and values — happy to take what they can get, even if it has an adverse effect on the organization. While these people can be hugely talented and energetic, if they are not willing to commit to your team ethic, they need to go.

CEO's Role In Alignment

With all the challenges of gaining alignment and the numerous pitfalls that need to be avoided, what is the role of the leader in this process? What are some of the less glamorous tasks Barack Obama, as leader of his senior team, will need to undertake to ensure he maintains alignment? There are three factors to consider. Firstly, Obama must expect an absolute commitment to alignment from his team to the purpose, values, and vision of his administration. Secondly, it is the leader's responsibility to build trust, leading by example: tell the truth, be open to new ideas, be respectful of each individual, keep commitments, seek excellence in everything he does. He must then expect the same from all team members.

Finally, the leader must be willing to get tough where necessary. He needs to provide strong leadership, without micromanaging his team. Senior team members need to have the freedom to use their creativity and exercise their unique talents, provided they stay in alignment with the overall purpose, values, and vision. Some world leaders reportedly demand subservience from their cabinet members — insisting on vetting media statements and controlling the message. The same is true of some CEOs. This is approach stifles creativity and the organization's ability to adapt quickly to change.

Strong leadership means challenging behaviors or decisions that are out of sync with the senior team's purpose, values, and vision or that will diminish or destroy trust with other team members, employees or the general public.

Three Essentials for Tough Times

In the current business environment, and with the many challenges facing the Obama administration, alignment alone is not enough. What you do with it matters most. Leaders across America are sensing a need, driven by tough circumstances, to do things differently to how they have been done before. This requires your organization to be flexible, adaptable and engaging.

Organizations need to be flexible enough to adapt quickly to change. This means the senior team must be open-minded and willing to make quick decisions. Adaptability is essential for dealing with a business climate that has been turned on its head and where significant change occurs on an almost weekly basis.

Secondly, organizations need to have as many team members as possible contribute to more innovative solutions — something Obama used to great effect in the election campaign — especially when it concerns keeping loyal customers and winning new customers in these challenging times.

Third, it is vital to keep employees and customers engaged with your purpose, values and vision. How often do you remind your employees and customers of the value your organization delivers, and of the values you operate by? Your team of employees is the engine of the organization, and you need the best they can give you. You will lose momentum quickly if they are switched off or fearful of losing their jobs.

Opportunity Knocks

Barack Obama's presidential campaign was run as smoothly as a successful global business, which in many ways it was. If he is to build on that momentum during his presidency, achieving alignment among his senior team will be crucial. Similarly for CEOs across America, turbulent times make alignment more important than ever. Executive teams in companies across America are currently experiencing emotions ranging from worry to blind panic. Most CEOs have never encountered economic conditions as challenging as they are now. The future is undoubtedly fraught with danger. But as the best minds — in both business and politics — have shown us during the years, no matter what the circumstances, the future is also always ripe with opportunity.

Keith Ayers president of international consulting firm Integro Leadership Institute, LLC, and author of the groundbreaking new book Engagement is Not Enough: You Need Passionate Employees to Achieve Your Dream. To learn more, visit www.EngagementIsNotEnough.com.