Management teams say a lot about any company. Effective leaders surround themselves with great people. Such leaders understand their weaknesses and know how to augment those inadequacies by hiring accordingly. Real leaders are not afraid to hire people who will challenge them intellectually.

An effective CEO also knows when someone on his/her management team will not make the team better, and does something about it decisively. Inaction often has as much, if not more, consequences than making an ineffective decision with the right intentions.

When building an executive team and personalities are involved, a young CEO and entrepreneur may not be able to decipher who on the management team is effective and who is not. Other times, he/she do understand the shortcomings of the team but is too inexperience or immature to move quickly to fix the problem.

I’ve met with a lot of young companies and their management teams. I can usually tell within a couple of minutes whether the team has the right chemistry or not, whether the individuals push each other constructively, or whether the team is dysfunctional.

In one company, many made excuses for one of the top executives before I even met him. That was not an effective management team. Recently, I met another management team where everyone comfortably contributed to a meeting. No one person dominated, including the top executive. I knew right away that this group headed for success.

Be honest now, how effective is your management team? Are you making excuses?