How Public Sector Leaders Can Improve Team Alignment and Collaboration

How Public Sector Leaders Can Improve Team Alignment and Collaboration

Carolyn Mozell is the founder and CEO of Leaders Who Connect and Inspire LLC and knows firsthand how transformative it can be when leaders and employees treat each other with mutual respect, kindness, and a genuine desire to see each other succeed. Carolyn served in some of the highest levels of local government leadership for over 25 years. Rising from executive assistant to deputy chief, she also knows that leadership is a privilege. Now, Carolyn leverages her direct experience advising elected officials, cabinet level leaders and activating diverse high performing teams to help leaders in business, nonprofit organizations and government agencies do the same.

Even high-performing government teams can stall when trust breaks down, communication weakens, or alignment is unclear, and the cost is significant. Gallup estimates that low engagement in a public agency with 10,000 employees can cost up to $66 million annually in lost productivity and turnover.

So how do you help your team shift from working in silos to working in sync?

Start by creating space for your team to clarify roles, expectations, and how they want to work together. That’s where a team alignment session comes in. It’s a facilitated, strengths-based experience I developed to help public-sector teams reset, realign, and re-engage around shared outcomes.

These sessions help teams:

Identify how individual strengths and work styles support team goals
Surface collaboration barriers that reduce performance
Co-create team agreements that guide how they work together effectively

This isn’t your typical team-building exercise. No trust falls or scavenger hunts here. It’s a performance accelerator designed to build trust, boost engagement, and strengthen accountability within the team and in support of the communities they serve.

A woman writes on a flipchart while two colleagues, one man and one woman, stand beside her smiling in a bright government office setting.

Four people in business attire sit around a table in a modern office, with two in the center smiling and shaking hands, suggesting a successful government meeting or agreement. Papers, notebooks, and glasses of water are on the table.

Alignment is a leadership choice. In public service, collaboration isn’t optional, it’s essential.

Burnout isn’t just about tired people—it’s about tired systems. It’s not a personal failing. It’s a workplace leadership challenge.

CAROLYN O. MOZELL

Start Aligning Your Team With One Powerful Question

Ask your team: “What do we need from each other to be more effective?” Then listen closely and use their responses to shape a team agreement everyone can commit to.

Aligned teams don’t rely on individual superstars. They thrive through clarity, trust, and shared success.

Alignment is a leadership choice. In public service, collaboration isn’t optional, it’s essential. Effective leaders don’t just drive outcomes. They shape how teams work together to achieve them. Alignment doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design. And it all starts with you.

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