If you're a manager, director, VP, SVP, or C-level exec, you have two teams. There's the peers you work with — your first team. And there's the people who report to you — your second team.
First Team Theory, from the must-read book Five Dysfunctions of a Team, argues you should prioritise the first over the second: your peers over your reports. I've read plenty of articles championing this idea, and plenty tearing it apart.
My own take, as with most things, is pragmatic: the theory can be both right and wrong, depending on the context and the situation. Let's break it down into some scenarios I've faced.
Several times in my career I've had to make hard decisions to move engineers onto other teams, under other leaders — my peers. This hasn't been the best thing for my own team, and certainly not for an engineer heavily invested in the project he was working on — but it was ultimately the best decision for the business as a whole. For example, releasing someone to save another project with a critical customer that was running behind. On some occasions it hasn't been best for me career-wise either. By allowing a high-performing engineer to move outside my teams, my remaining teams have marginally slowed as we backfilled the role, before re-forming and acting as a unit again.
Unfortunately, a few times I've had to make redundancies. It's never in the direct interest of the people affected, and it doesn't get easier with repetition. Sometimes it genuinely is about the company's survival. Other times it's a harder truth: the business needed to run leaner, and that's a decision I had to own, not hide from. Cases like these are where I think First Team Theory holds up.
Then there are the times it doesn't. I've had peers and leaders before who've made completely unreasonable demands, or acted in ways that weren't psychologically safe for the teams I serve — prioritising short-term gain over the long-term interests of the business. You have to be willing to stand up and hold them accountable for this. First Team Theory would suggest I should immediately back the VP of HR who doesn't want to give that pay rise, or the VP of Finance who wants to cut 30% from the laptop budget. Defend your people. Don't assume every decision coming from your first team is based on logic and data — some are made from stress, or a drive to hit their own targets with their own teams. For your people to trust you, they need to see you're willing to have uncomfortable conversations and fight for what they need to succeed.
When timelines are continually pressured to move sooner than planned, it's easy to let that pressure flow straight down to the team. Work the weekend. Work Christmas Day (yes, I really did have that exact demand made of my whole team by a previous leader — for no extra pay).
Defend your team's estimates, their right to a personal life, their ability to take holiday. There's no harm in asking "how can we deliver this quicker?" But the more you defend them day to day, the more willing they are to step up and work the nights and weekends when something genuinely goes wrong. High-performing teams start with a leader who asks for the best — but also cares.
So which is right, serving the first team or the second? You could argue there's an underlying theme running through every decision above, both for and against First Team Theory: what's in the best interest of the business.
Even then, what's right for the business isn't black and white — it requires nuance and long-term, strategic thinking. Is it in the best interest of the business for your team to work Christmas Day to get a project done? Absolutely — in the short term. In the long term, that kind of thinking harms a business if practised continually. Keep telling your people they can't take holiday, can't have a public holiday off, or need to work weekend after weekend, and eventually they'll leave and go elsewhere.
What I've learned to boil it down to is integrity and balance. Integrity is honesty in your actions and decisions, and a willingness to explain them clearly and openly. Balance is weighing the short-term versus long-term implications of every decision.
As leaders, we have to be willing to flex between serving both teams. Where the two conflict, work out what's genuinely in the best interest of the business, and be willing to explain why you made that call. People may not like you for it, but they'll respect the honesty. And with honesty comes trust — the first pillar in Five Dysfunctions of a Team.