Across industries, organisations have made significant strides in dismantling data silos by investing in integrated platforms that promise improved efficiency and speed. But even as digital transformation accelerates, many continue to overlook a more complex and human barrier: the silos between people.

These invisible boundaries, across teams, departments, or regions, slow innovation, reduce agility, and fracture accountability. According to a 2021 McKinsey report, data silos alone cost the global economy $3.1trn annually. The cost of people silos, while harder to quantify, is just as material.

The next frontier in leadership is not only about better technology. It’s about addressing the human architecture of collaboration. Leaders can start to address these challenges by focusing on collective responsibility, trust and transparent communication.

Collective accountability is key to breaking people silos

In siloed environments, accountability is often interpreted as isolation. Different teams pursue their own metrics and priorities, rarely aligning around shared outcomes. For instance, product teams may push roadmap features based on internal goals while service teams advocate for client-driven enhancements. The result is that teams are racing towards the finish line without shared ownership of the outcome.

To break this cycle, leaders must redefine accountability as a collective responsibility. When success is shared, alignment becomes natural. Teams are more likely to collaborate, anticipate one another’s needs, and focus on advancing the mission together.

However, to achieve this type of collaboration, it’s important that a leadership team agree to shared strategic objectives, goals and a mission. This doesn’t eliminate expectations for individual performance, but it can shift everyone’s focus towards working well together as a group to support one another in accomplishing greater goals.

Some practical ways to achieve this include establishing cross-functional KPIs and celebrating collaboration publicly. By rewarding collective achievement, leaders can prevent fragmentation and direct all teams toward common goals.
Trust as the foundation to collective success

Trust plays a foundational role in breaking people silos. Without it, even well-intentioned collaboration and accountability structures can feel forced. Unlike data silos, which are largely technical, people silos are deeply cultural — and only trust can bridge those divides. Trust can transform accountability into a positive cultural force. For instance, in high-trust environments, people don’t fear missteps; rather, they feel safe taking ownership, speaking up and learning lessons.

Building this kind of trust requires leaders to acknowledge where misalignments have historically occurred and create space for genuine dialogue. That could mean holding listening sessions with disconnected groups or building feedback loops that keep communication open. Trust isn’t built in policy documents, it emerges when leaders repeatedly demonstrate openness, humility, and follow through.
Trust emerges when leaders demonstrate transparency and consistency. Over time, this turns accountability from a compliance exercise into a positive cultural force.

Align goals through transparency

To understand what a company values, look at how it measures success. When performance is measured strictly within departmental walls, teams will compete for credit and protect resources. Instead, leaders should define goals that cut across functions and reflect shared outcomes.

Transparency reinforces this way of working. Leaders should proactively involve cross-functional stakeholders during planning to build buy in. Additionally, communicating the “why” behind business decisions, not just the “what,” equips teams with the clarity to collaborate rather than compete.

Leaders who work to integrate data but fail to connect people are missing a vital piece of true transformation. In markets that demand speed and real-time adaptability, disconnected teams will always fall short. As companies adopt AI and automation, it’s tempting to assume progress depends solely on technology. But even the smartest systems need smart, connected teams to realise their full potential.

Breaking people silos is not just a cultural exercise, it’s a strategic imperative. Leaders who build collective responsibility, trust, and transparency will create organisations capable of moving faster, innovating more deeply, and sustaining growth in the face of constant change.