High performing teams

High performing teams, building something better than just plain busy. This is what we'll be talking about today on how to lead the podcast for CEOs, founders, and leaders who want some clear tools, techniques, and strategies to help you lead well, so your teams thrive and results follow. I'm Kate Waterfall Hill, and I'll be sharing some ideas from over 30 years of working in business and leadership development.

If you find my take on leadership useful, but want to go deeper and get some more personalised support so you can elevate your own leadership skills or those of your managers, check out my website, waterfallhill.co.uk. You can find my book, my online course, the How to Lead Digital Academy, my group coaching program, the Leadership Accelerated Premium, my team workshops, and my one-to-one coaching programs all there.

So today we're talking about what it really means to build a high performing team. And just so you know, it's not about finding 10 top performers and locking them in a room together. Let's start, as always with Linda, the bad manager, my alter ego on social media and see what she has to say about high performing teams.

“Would I say my team is high performing? Probably not, no. But then would I say my team is a natural team? It's more of a group of random people that have been thrown together. And do they have a compelling purpose that unites them? Compelling? No. Confusing? Yes, because they all do have a purpose. They know what they're doing in their own roles, I think.

But if you ask them what we're doing as a team, all five people would probably give you five different answers. If I'm honest. I don't encourage any sense of team collaboration. No. I give them individual targets and then they're just competing against each other. Engenders that sort of competitive rivalry.

I quite like moaning about each other behind their backs, telling me all the things that are wrong with the other people that unites them as well as their combined dislike of me. So not high performing? No. No, but highly entertaining. Keeps me amused.”

As always. She's not quite with the program, is she? But never mind. We can do better than that. Let's take a different approach. So first of all, why does having a high performing team matter? Think we want high performing teams, but what do we mean?

Because if you ask 10 different leaders to define what that means. You'll probably get 10 different answers. Some say it's about results. Others say it's about speed. Some think it's about harmony. Others think it's about hustle. Well, here's how I define it. A high performing team is a group of individuals who work together effectively, consistently, and with purpose to deliver great outcomes and actually enjoy the process.

So it isn't about perfection. It's about performance with a bit of humanity thrown in. Now, why does it matter? Well, high performing teams, by their very nature, are more productive and more innovative than other teams. They have better retention and lower stress. People tend to stick around longer if they're in a high performing team because they're enjoying it, and they tend to recover faster from setbacks, which are inevitable after all.

And actually being part of a high performing team is actually just more enjoyable. It's more enjoyable to be part of, and it's more enjoyable to lead. So if you are in a leadership role, your job isn't to get the best out of people by force. It's to create the conditions where performance can thrive.

Now, I absolutely love doing team coaching, but people who are miles more experienced than me include Dr. Ruth Wageman and Dr. Richard Hackman. They've done decades of work in this area, and they've built what's known as the six team conditions framework. It's one of the most robust evidence-based models we have for understanding what really drives team effectiveness.

So I'd like to talk to you about how as a leader, you can set up these conditions, and the word conditions is important because research shows that performance isn't just about who's on the team, it's about the environment leaders create around them, and that's where you come in. Let's take each one in turn.

First of all, a real team, and this means that the team isn't just a loose group of people thrown together. A real team has clear boundaries. Everybody knows who's in and who's out. And importantly, it's stable, not constantly changing. The other thing about a real team is that the members are interdependent.

They rely on one another for a common purpose. Exchanging resources, ideas, and accountability.

Perhaps you've been on one of these teams where no one is quite sure who belongs, or people drift in and out depending on the project, and you might know how hard it is to build trust and momentum because a real team gives people clarity about where they belong.

Number two in the six conditions is a compelling purpose, and this to me is the absolute must have. So teams need a North star. The purpose must be clear. Everyone needs to understand what success looks like. It also needs to be challenging, stretching people's capabilities so it feels motivating and consequential having real world impact. That matters because when people see why their work makes a difference, energy rises. Without it, the work feels flat no matter how talented the individuals are.

Firstly, it needs to be a real team. Secondly, it needs a compelling purpose. The third thing is that it needs to have the right people in it. This isn't about stacking the room with high achievers. It's about ensuring the team collectively has the skills, perspectives, and diversity of thought needed to tackle its purpose.

A team of clones doesn't innovate. You don't want a whole group of yes people. You want a team with complementary strengths. With individuals who value each other's strengths as well. That's an important part.

So number four is a sound structure. Teams need a sensible design small enough to achieve something together too big, and it gets unwieldy too small, and it's not really a team, it's just a couple or a three. Tasks that actually make sense for a team, not just individual busy work.

So people working alongside each other in silos isn't a team, it's a group of individuals. There needs to be a reason why people need to work together and they also need the structure of having norms of behaviour that guide how members work together. Because without agreed norms, you tend to get politics.

Also, you can get confusion and even conflict, but with norms, with understood norms that people agree to. You get flow.

So you need a real team, not just a group of people. You need a compelling purpose. You need the right people and the right structure. Now number five is a supportive organizational context because no team operates in a vacuum. They need the organization systems and structures to support collaboration.

So things like reward systems that recognise team success, not just isolate individual progress. People need access to training and resources. They also need the right data to make decisions. And importantly, the organisation needs to help these people have time carved out for team development. A brilliant team in a broken context will still struggle.

Now, Dr. Ruth Wageman and Dr. Richard Hackman, who created this six team conditions framework, were team coaches. So then last suggestion is that you have available expert coaching, and of course I would agree. teams benefit from coaching, ideally from someone with the expertise to help them reflect, improve, and stay on track.

This doesn't have to be external every time. Leaders themselves can adopt a coaching style, creating space for growth rather than just managing output. So putting all of these six conditions together, a real team, a compelling purpose, the right people. A sound structure, supportive context, and expert coaching.

Then you've got the fertile ground where high performance can actually grow. So just take a minute now to think. What do you need to do in terms of creating the perfections for high performing teams?

So I hope that's helpful in terms of the research foundation, but what does it look like in day-to-day behaviour? In my workshop, on the subject of high performing teams that I do with my leadership accelerator premium members, I talk about the nine practical traits of high performing teams, which map beautifully onto the six conditions.

First of all, clear communication. This links directly to sound structure and a supportive context. In high performing teams, information flows clearly and promptly. People know who needs what and when. Feedback is regular and useful, and conflict doesn't fester, it gets aired and resolved.

As a leader, your role is to model clarity. Don't leave people guessing. Say what you mean politely, but directly. Ask questions and listen.

Secondly, goal alignment. That compelling purpose only matters if the team is genuinely aligned on it. If half your team think they're building a bridge and the other half think they're fixing a tap, you might have a problem. So revisit that. Why often when priorities shift, don't assume alignment.

You might need to create it again.

Number three is trust and respect. Not nice to haves. They're absolutely essential for interdependence because without trust, people tend to hold back. They avoid risk, and they waste time covering themselves with trust. They step forward, own their work, and innovate. Number four, a shared vision. This isn't just fluffy stuff. This is a psychological anchor. Teams need to know what they're building, what success looks like, and how their roles contribute. that's what transforms KPIs into shared ownership.

Number five is collaboration. And this is a genuine need to collaborate because if you have people who are working on individual projects that don't really need to work together, then they're not a team. But high performing teams collaborate in ways that respect strengths and challenge those silos.

They know when to lead, when to support, and how to share credit, and that requires both sound structure and the right people.

Number six is adaptability because the world changes and rigid teams can snap Adaptive teams bend. This means revising plans, experimenting with new approaches, and letting go of the well. We've always done it this way. A tip here would be to use project reviews, not just to evaluate results, but to ask what would we do differently next time?

Number seven is accountability. It's about ownership, but not blame. It sounds like that's on me. I'll fix it or I'm behind. Can we shift the priorities or stepping up to say next time I'll prepare earlier? To build accountability, leaders need clarity, feedback, and trust. the best leaders don't rescue. They coach. So rather than jumping in and solving the problem for somebody else, they support the person to find the solutions themselves.

Number eight, continuous improvement. High performing teams never stop learning. They say, how can we do this better and treat mistakes as data not disasters. This is where expert coaching makes a real difference.

And finally, resilience setbacks will happen. The difference is how quickly the team bounces back and resilience grows when people support each other. Manage stress collectively and keep perspective. So hold back the judgment if you can and just look for ways to do things better next time.

So just to summarise those nine traits, clear communication, goal alignment, trust and respect, shared vision, collaboration, adaptability, accountability. Continuous improvement and resilience.

You might want to pause at the end of this podcast and just have a think. Where could you pay some attention?

Maybe stop and have a think now about which of the six conditions and which of the nine traits that you could have a role in, in improving in your team, because your role as leader. Means taking action. You need to do things to build these conditions and traits. here are 10 leadership actions you could try.

First of all, setting the tone because your team mirrors your energy. Secondly, communicate clearly clear goals, honest feedback, active listening. Also foster psychological safety. Make it safe for your people to speak up, to innovate, to admit mistakes, to ask questions.

Then set clear expectations. What's good, what's a priority, what's non-negotiable? And then build trust. Follow through, admit your own mistakes, and stay transparent. Also, facilitate collaboration. So design opportunities to work across roles and celebrate those small successes when you see collaboration in play.

Then give feedback often, not annually. Please rhythmically all the time. Manage people's workloads with them. Challenge is fine, but burnout isn't. Make sure you advocate for your team. Secure resources for them. Get them the recognition and support they need. And finally, resolve conflict. Please. As a leader.

Don't let tension linger. Clear it constructively.

Here's a little story for you to bring this to life. So imagine this scenario, A senior manager leads a team where each person is strong in their role. Yet results. Apache meetings feel flat and project stall, but through coaching and reflection, she realizes she's unintentionally created a team of solo operators.

She rarely encourages collaboration and tends to avoid conflict. So those silos grow. Perhaps this sounds familiar. These are the three simple changes she can make. Introduce cross-functional project pairs so people work together. Start giving positive feedback publicly. Invite the team to define what great looks like together. Co-create that success criteria and within months, engagement will lift. deadlines are starting to be met more consistently. and people step into stretch roles.

This is not magic, it's just deliberate leadership.

In summary then, high performing teams aren't born, they're built deliberately, steadily through clarity, care, and consistency. If you want your team to deliver consistently, support each other, challenge themselves, innovate and grow, then start with these, create the right conditions.

As a recap, real team purpose, the right people, the right structure, supportive context, and expert coaching. Then communicate clearly, build trust, encourage collaboration, hold people accountable, learn, reflect, and adapt, and importantly, show up consistently. This won't happen overnight, but it will happen, and when it does, it feels less like managing and more like positive momentum. That's all for today's episode of How to Lead. Until next time, keep leading with Clarity, care, and curiosity

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It makes a huge difference. And don't forget, the best leaders are clear on the vision, care about their people, and approach interactions with curiosity, not judgment. Until next time, don't be a Linda.