A leadership team charter records how leaders will work together to serve a shared business outcome. It should explain the team's purpose, decision boundaries, commitments to one another and response to disagreement. A statement that everyone will collaborate is not enough if people still make incompatible decisions afterward.
This template is a discussion aid, not a legal charter, governance instrument or grant of authority. Keep existing policies and authorized decision roles intact. Use it to clarify working agreements within those boundaries, and route proposed changes to the people who can approve them.
Download the team charter template for Word
Editorial worksheet (AI-assisted): Download the editable Word worksheet to record the five working-agreement fields in this guide. Replace the bracketed prompts, discuss different interpretations and keep an agreed version in your approved records. The download is a discussion aid, not a legal charter, governance policy, validated assessment or grant of authority. Existing approvals remain in force; do not put confidential personnel or customer information in the shared worksheet.
Choose the charter for the work you need to coordinate
Editorial clarification (AI-assisted): This template is an ongoing leadership team’s working agreement: it records shared purpose, decision boundaries, peer commitments and how the team handles disagreement. If your immediate task is to start one defined project, use the organization’s approved project-charter format to record that project’s outcome, scope, sponsor and required approvals. If the project team also needs day-to-day working agreements, the fields here can support that discussion without replacing the project’s authorization.
For an executive team, identify which outcomes the members own together rather than simply listing their departmental responsibilities. Keep existing governance and delegated authority explicit. A useful working agreement helps peers coordinate within those rules; calling it a charter does not create new authority or make it an organization’s governing document.
Begin with the team's collective work
Describe the outcome that requires this group to act as a team rather than as separate department representatives. What decision or coordination responsibility cannot be handled well by one function alone? What does this team own, and what does it advise rather than decide?
An illustrative purpose statement is: 'We coordinate the approved operating priorities across these functions, resolve shared-capacity questions within our authority and make unresolved trade-offs visible to the authorized sponsor.' Replace the words with your actual remit. Avoid writing an ambitious purpose that the team has no authority or capacity to fulfill.
Template field one: purpose and scope
Complete: Our shared outcome is [outcome]. We are responsible for [collective work]. We are not responsible for [outside-scope matters]. The evidence we will review is [specific work or outcome]. Our sponsor or governing owner is [authorized role]. Ask each member to explain the statement using a recent example.
If leaders disagree about the outcome itself, use the alignment-workshop agenda before treating the charter as complete. The charter retains an agreement; it cannot create alignment by documenting a statement people interpret differently.
Template field two: decisions and escalation
Complete: These recurring decisions belong to [authorized roles]. Required input comes from [roles or records]. These limits remain governed by [approved requirements]. When [specific condition] occurs, the question goes to [authorized owner] through [route]. If an owner is unavailable, we use [approved alternate arrangement].
Keep the charter at the level of working rules and link to the detailed decision-rights record where needed. Do not label the entire group accountable for every decision. Clear consultation and a named decision owner are different responsibilities.
Template field three: commitments between leaders
Complete: When we accept work from another function, we agree the outcome, receiving owner, usable input and checkpoint. If a commitment becomes unworkable, we raise the changed condition before relying on the other team to discover it. We identify what stops or changes when a new priority is accepted.
In a fictional team, one leader might commit to supplying an approved planning input before another function schedules work. The charter does not need every technical detail. It needs a dependable way to agree the interface, raise a missing input and resolve the next decision.
Template field four: disagreement and speaking up
Complete: We raise disagreements about actual decisions or work, distinguish evidence from interpretation and invite the affected perspectives. We do not treat silence as acceptance. Unresolved concerns receive an owner and a response point. Serious conduct or protected concerns follow the organization's proper reporting process.
The cross-functional conflict guide distinguishes factual questions, priority trade-offs and authority gaps. The charter should allow those differences to surface; it should not be a pledge to avoid disagreement or force private employee matters into a leadership forum.
Template field five: review and maintenance
Complete: We review [selected work examples] at [appropriate checkpoint]. The charter owner is [role]. We reconsider an agreement when [changed conditions or evidence] appear. Proposed authority changes require [approval route]. Updates are communicated to [affected roles], not just stored in the meeting notes.
Use the weekly meeting agenda to review decisions and exceptions without turning the charter into a separate reporting ceremony. Keep an agreed version where the team can find it and remove obsolete wording through the proper ownership process.
Editorial inquiry guide (AI-assisted): If the charter leaves a recurring disagreement unresolved and you want to explore support in writing, use the contact page. Briefly describe the shared outcome, one decision the team interprets differently, the sponsor’s role and what internal work has already been tried. Do not send a confidential team document or personnel details with the initial inquiry. Ask whether help is needed to clarify the agreement, facilitate the discussion or support its use in ordinary work; those are different scopes, not a promise that outside help is necessary. The form starts a conversation rather than approving an engagement or requiring you to book a meeting.
Leadership team charter example: coordinate a planning handoff
Fictional example (AI-assisted editorial): An operations leader and a people leader need an agreed staffing input before preparing the next approved work plan. Their shared outcome is a usable planning input, not control over each other's departments. Their charter records that operations describes the work requirement and people leadership confirms the information it can supply through approved processes. Personnel details stay in the organization's permitted systems, not in the shared charter.
Their working agreement says: We name a receiving owner, required input and checkpoint before accepting the handoff. The person preparing the input is not automatically authorized to change staffing or priorities. If the input will be late or two commitments compete, the responsible leader raises the condition through the agreed sponsor route; nobody silently assumes the other function accepted a changed deadline. Existing approvals remain in force.
At review, both leaders use one ordinary handoff and one exception to test the agreement. Can each explain who owes what, who decides and when the receiver will hear the answer? They record any differing interpretation and ask the appropriate owner to resolve it. This filled example shows how the template fields connect; it is not a client charter, an approved staffing arrangement or evidence of improved performance.
Test the charter before calling it finished
Choose two appropriately anonymized work situations: one ordinary decision and one exception. Ask each leader who would decide, what they owe the next team and what they would do if the agreement could not be met. Resolve differing answers. A signed or circulated charter is not evidence that leaders can use it consistently.
At the next review, examine whether the agreement helped people act and whether legitimate concerns were resolved. If the same ambiguities persist across the leadership team, discuss the operating pattern with Shannon. The aim is a usable working agreement, not a longer document.
About this resource: Prepared with AI-assisted drafting and editorial review. The template and examples are illustrative, not a governance policy or reported client result. Cover illustration: AI-generated.