They were broken

From the first day I met them, a month before I started a new CEO role, my soon-to-be management team were a wreck.
You could see it in their faces, their posture, and even how they spoke to each other: walking on eggshells, defensive, bracing for impact.

At that stage I didn’t exactly know why, but I knew one thing: rebuilding them, both as individuals and as a team, had to be my number-one priority.

Over time, the story came out.
The previous leader ruled with ego and confusion - pitting people against one another, disappearing for weeks, then re-appearing demanding results.
No feedback, no empathy, just chaos and blame.
By the time I arrived, they were physically and emotionally exhausted, stripped of confidence, and wary of any new leader who might do the same or worse.

I wasn’t perfect, but I knew what they needed wasn’t another quick-fix strategy or rousing speech.
They needed consistency.

So we started small: showing up, keeping promises, celebrating small wins, rebuilding trust brick by brick.

We had open conversations about what had gone wrong before - not to assign blame, but to make sense of the scars.
I asked each person privately what they needed from me to do their best work.
And as a team we discussed what we needed from one another.

We built our weekly meetings around clarity and candour: no hidden agendas, no politics, just honest debate and shared ownership.
When things went wrong, we stayed in the room and worked through it together instead of retreating to corners.

And most importantly, I made sure they saw me admit when I got it wrong.
Because my vulnerability created permission for them to be human again.

It took time, but we found our own rhythm.
Meetings stopped feeling like minefields.
We started laughing again.
The trust returned and so did the results.

And one morning, about six months in, I realised the energy in the room had shifted.
They were leading again, not out of fear, but out of belief.

What I learned through that experience has shaped how I lead and coach.
A broken team doesn’t heal through pressure or performance metrics.
It heals through safety, honesty and follow-through.

When people start to feel safe, they take risks again.
When they take risks, the creativity and performance come back.
And that’s when the real transformation begins.

It’s something I now see often in my coaching with senior leaders.
Many of them carry the scars of toxic leadership or the exhaustion of holding everything together for too long.
The work isn’t just strategic; it’s emotional repair.
Re-learning trust.
Re-building belief.
Re-discovering joy in leading.

Because when a team feels whole again, everything else-  strategy, execution, results -follows naturally.