What Makes a Great Team? It’s Not What Most Leaders Think

Ask most leaders what makes a great team, and you’ll hear answers like:

“Smart people.”

“Strong work ethic.”

“Top performers who execute.”

But over the years, I’ve worked with many teams that had all those things - brilliant people, deep experience, relentless drive - and still struggled. They were good, but they weren’t great.

And the reason usually wasn’t skill or ambition. It was something else. Something less obvious, but far more powerful.

The Research Is Clear: It’s Not About Talent Alone

In one of the most well-known studies on team effectiveness, Google’s Project Aristotle analyzed more than 180 teams across the company to figure out what separated high performers from the rest.

The number one factor?

Psychological safety: the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with an idea, a concern, or a mistake.

It wasn’t IQ. Or experience. Or leadership pedigree. It was the feeling of safety that unlocked the rest.

Other research backs this up.

• Gallup consistently finds that trust, inclusion, and role clarity drive engagement and performance.

• McKinsey reports that teams with high psychological safety are more likely to innovate, collaborate, and sustain performance over time.

In other words:

The foundation of a great team isn’t just who’s on it—it’s how they work together.

What Most Leaders Miss

The mistake many leaders make is assuming that a group of high performers will naturally become a high-performing team. But it doesn’t work like that.

Even smart, motivated people can:

• Talk past each other

• Compete instead of collaborate

• Avoid tough conversations

• Feel misaligned or unclear about priorities

When that happens, execution suffers—not because people aren’t capable, but because the team system isn’t strong.

I see this all the time in my work with leadership teams. They’re busy. They’re productive. But they haven’t had the time—or the space—to do the deeper work of building trust, defining shared priorities, or getting aligned on how they make decisions together.

And without that foundation, the cracks start to show.

How to Build a Stronger Team

I’ve spent years helping leadership teams move from competent to connected—from functioning to high-performing.

And in that work, I use a structured, four-phase framework:

1. Build Trust & Alignment

Before anything else, teams need to feel safe, respected, and clear on who they are together. This phase focuses on:

• Psychological safety

• Emotional intelligence

• Understanding team dynamics

• Surfacing what’s working (and what’s not)

When trust is low, alignment is impossible. When trust is strong, everything else gets easier.

2. Define Shared Priorities

Once trust is in place, the next step is clarity:

• What are our top priorities?

• What decisions do we need to make together?

• Where are we aligned—and where are we not?

This phase is about reducing ambiguity and building ownership. It gives the team a shared lens for where they’re headed.

3. Translate Priorities into Action

Great teams don’t stop at strategy—they execute.

This phase turns alignment into momentum:

• Clear roles and responsibilities

• Communication plans

• Accountability systems

• Feedback loops

Without action, priorities are just words on a slide. This phase brings them to life.

4. Sustain Focus & Alignment

Even strong teams drift. This phase helps prevent that.

Here, we embed practices to:

• Reflect on progress

• Adapt to change

• Keep priorities visible

• Maintain trust over time

It’s the difference between a good quarter… and a resilient team.

Great Teams Are Built—Not Born

Leadership teams don’t become high-performing by accident. They get there by being intentional—about how they show up, how they decide, how they treat each other, and how they stay focused on what matters.

It’s not just about getting results. It’s about how those results are achieved—and whether the team grows stronger or weaker in the process.

Great teams aren’t made of heroes. They’re made of people who trust each other enough to get better together.

And the best part? Any team can build that—if they’re willing to do the work.