The next generation of Saudi CEOs will not be chosen on strategy. They will be chosen on whether they can move work through people who do not report to them.
Every senior executive in the Kingdom is taught how to manage downward. Universities teach it. MBAs reinforce it. Twenty years of promotions reward it. By the time a leader reaches the C-suite, managing direct reports is reflex.
Then the reporting line disappears.
At the executive committee table, the CFO does not report to the COO. The Chief Compliance Officer does not report to the Chief Investment Officer. The GM of one business unit does not report to the GM of another. Every leader in the room is, on paper, equal. And almost every meaningful decision in the company has to pass through that room.
This is the skill gap that decides senior careers in Saudi Arabia. Not strategy. Not capability. Lateral leadership, the ability to influence peers without authority over them.
It is the most expensive skill gap in the C-suite, and the one almost no one is taught on the way up.
What lateral leadership is
Lateral leadership is the practice of moving decisions, work, and outcomes through peers, leaders who do not report to you, do not depend on you for compensation, and are not obligated to act on your input.
It is the operating skill of the modern C-suite. Above the function-head level, almost all real work is lateral. Strategy execution is lateral. Cross-functional initiatives are lateral. Vision 2030 transformation programs are lateral. Family-business succession is lateral.
The leaders who run Saudi Arabia's largest organisations in the next decade will be the ones who can do this work fluently. The ones who cannot will plateau at function head, regardless of how strong they are downward.
Why it is harder than managing teams
Managing direct reports works because three forces support it. None of them survive the move sideways.
Authority disappears. A peer is not obliged to act on your input. They have their own boss, their own targets, their own logic.
Agenda control disappears. You no longer set the room. The CEO does, or no one does, and meetings drift.
Consequences disappear. You cannot reward or penalise a peer. The currency you used to spend on direct reports, performance reviews, promotions, scope, budget, is no longer in your wallet.
What replaces all three is influence. Influence is slower, less visible, and harder to manufacture than authority. It is also the only currency that works at the top.
The four shifts senior leaders make
The leaders who break through this make four moves. None are taught in management training. All are coachable.
1. Inquiry before advocacy
Senior leaders earn their seats by being right under pressure. By the time they reach the C-suite, "I have the right answer" is reflex, not choice. That reflex destroys peer relationships.
The shift is mechanical. One additional question before any position. One sentence that names the peer's constraint out loud, even when it is inconvenient. One pause where the old version of the leader would have advocated.
In one Riyadh-based investment firm, two leaders. Compliance and Investment, spent two years in low-grade conflict. The break came not from a workshop but from a single language change: the CIO began every conversation with "Help me understand what this looks like from your seat first." Decision speed inside the firm doubled within a quarter.
This is the move from advocate to inquirer. In coaching language, it is the foundational competency. In boardroom language, it is the difference between a fast leader and a respected one.
2. Play the invisible scoreboard
Peer meetings have two scoreboards. The visible one tracks who said what, who pushed back, who carried the room. The invisible one tracks whether the company actually made a better decision than it would have without you there.
Most senior leaders unconsciously play the visible scoreboard. They prepare for ExCom meetings the way a lawyer prepares for court, with positions, not questions. They feel good when they "win." They feel diminished when they don't.
The visible scoreboard is zero-sum. The invisible one compounds. Win three meetings in a row on the visible scoreboard and the fourth one quietly happens without you.
Leaders who shift to the invisible scoreboard prepare differently. They walk in with the trade-off the room is making, not the position they are defending. They are willing to lose a point to land a decision. The CEO starts to lean on them precisely because they are the only leader in the room not playing for themselves.
3. Make conflict structural, not personal
In most Saudi executive teams, conflict is not absent. It is underground. Direct disagreement reads as disrespect, so the disagreement moves into corridors, side meetings, and the long pauses after a senior peer speaks.
This is the most expensive form of conflict, because it is never resolved. It is paid for in slow execution, every quarter.
Three mechanics change it.
Frame the disagreement as structural. Two functions, two priorities, two horizons, not two people. "Operations and Finance are pulling in different directions on this. Let's name that." The room can debate a structural disagreement. It cannot debate a personal one, especially in this region.
Disagree with the position, not the person. "I think the position you're advocating optimises for short-term margin at the cost of customer trust" is hard to take personally. It is also hard to ignore.
Close the loop in private. A short message after a hard meeting. "That was a real disagreement. I want to make sure we end the day on the same team." Sixty seconds. Years of relational capital.
4. Lend power instead of accumulating it
Most leaders, on the way up, accumulate. Headcount. Scope. Budget. Reporting lines. Information. The accumulation is rational, until it stops working.
At the top, influence is no longer a function of what you control. It is a function of what other leaders are willing to do because you asked.
Leaders who understand this lend power instead of stockpiling it. They share information their peers need. They make their teams available. They support a peer's initiative in front of the CEO without being asked. They publicly credit work that was not theirs.
This sounds soft. It is the opposite, it is the most strategic move a senior leader can make, because every loan compounds. When the budget conversation happens, the peers you have lent to vote with you. When succession is discussed, the CEO hears your name from rooms you were not in.
Saudi family-business leaders often understand this intuitively about the wider community and forget to apply it inside their own ExCom.
The diagnostic
If three or more of the following describe a senior leader's last quarter, lateral leadership is the binding constraint.
- The same decision keeps returning to ExCom without resolving.
- They leave executive committee meetings feeling unheard or unfinished.
- They can name two peers whose support is needed for the next major initiative, and are not sure they have it.
- The CEO has, at least once, told them to "work it out" with another leader.
- Their team is mirroring the friction they have with another function.
- Side conversations are outnumbering open ones.
- They catch themselves rehearsing arguments instead of solving problems.
None of these are character flaws. They are signals.
What the work looks like
These four shifts are simple on a page and difficult in a body that has spent twenty years being rewarded for the opposite reflexes. Reading does not change reflex. Practice with feedback does.
In a confidential 1-on-1 executive coaching engagement, the work runs six to twelve months. Behavioural assessments. Birkman, Predictive Index, surface the patterns. 360-degree interviews with peers and the CEO ground the work in real perception. Hard conversations are rehearsed before they happen and debriefed after.
Where the dynamic between peers is itself the issue, team coaching treats the leadership team as a system, drawing on Tavistock Institute group relations methods to make invisible dynamics visible.
For senior leaders who want to develop alongside peers from other industries, the Leadership Mastery Program is a multi-month cohort, often the first room in which a senior leader practises peer leadership where the cost of getting it wrong is low.
The bottom line
The leaders who run Saudi Arabia's largest companies in the next decade will not be the ones with the strongest opinions. They will be the ones who can hold their own opinion lightly enough to lead a peer who disagrees.
That is not a soft skill. It is the senior skill, and the one almost no one is taught on the way up.
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About the author
Abdulelah Alhadidi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Saudi Executive Coaching. He is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC), an INSEAD-trained organisational consultant, a Tavistock Institute Group Relations alumnus, and a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner. He has spent more than 16 years coaching senior leaders across banking, oil & gas, automotive, hospitality, and family-business sectors in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC.
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FAQ (FAQPage schema-ready)
What is lateral leadership? Lateral leadership is the practice of moving decisions and work through peers, people who do not report to you and are not obligated to act on your input. At the C-suite level, almost all real work is lateral, which is why it becomes the bottleneck for senior careers.
Why is leading peers harder than managing direct reports? Three forces that support managing direct reports, authority, agenda control, and consequence control, disappear at peer level. Influence has to replace authority, and influence is slower, less visible, and harder to manufacture.
How long does it take to improve peer leadership? Most senior leaders see meaningful behavioural change within three months and durable change within six to twelve, given regular coaching and honest feedback from peers.
Is executive coaching common in Saudi Arabia? Yes. Major Saudi banks, family conglomerates, government-linked entities, and listed companies invest in coaching for senior leaders, and adoption has accelerated under Vision 2030. ICF accreditation is the recognised standard for senior-level engagements.
What's the difference between 1-on-1 coaching, team coaching, and a cohort program? 1-on-1 coaching addresses how an individual leader shows up. Team coaching addresses the dynamic between members of a leadership team. A cohort program develops a senior leader alongside peers from other industries. A discovery session is the simplest way to identify which fits.