Teamership: 25 ideas to lead teams better in 2025

I’ve written previously about how for teams…

Rules suck. Principles rule.

That is a reminder (to myself as much as anyone), that these are best treated as prompts, not as instruction.

Some of these ideas or phrases are mine, some are from others.

Where I am aware, I have referenced the most original source that I am aware of for each idea or phrase that isn’t mine.

Either way, I hope that these prompt some thinking and discussion for you, your leaders and your teams.

1. Most teams at work don’t work. Only about 20% of teams across a range of measures are high performing.

This is a broad statement based on multiple sources, including Hackman & Wageman, Atlassian and Harvard Business Review.

That means that you can make a huge leap by being a high performing team 25% of the time.

2. Teams don’t become teams just because we call them one.

Katzenbach & Smith.

3. Teams are not complicated, they’re complex. Complexity requires something different of leaders and teams – not just more effort.?

4. Being busy is not the same as being productive. The shift from individual busyness to collective productivity is the challenge for most leaders and teams.

5. Groups are as fast as the fastest individual and more efficient than the most efficient individual when the task is complex but not when the task is simple.

In other words, working together is better when there is complexity involved – which is a lot of the time!

Almaatouq, et al.

6. Leaders are what they EAT. The impact of a leader on their team is a product of where they spend their energy, attention and time.?

7. Most leaders are overcommitted and aren’t particularly happy with how they spend their energy, attention and time.

75% of HR leaders report that managers are overwhelmed with the expanding scope of their responsibilities. (Gartner)

8. Behaviour is a function of the person and their environment. (Lewin)

My observation is that we typically overemphasise the person and underemphasise the environment.

We can nudge behaviours for ourselves?and others by changing the physical and social environment.

?9.?The quality of your conversations determines the quality of your relationships, which determines the quality of your team performance. Michael Cavanagh, University of Sydney.

10.?The best leaders facilitate the best conversations.

11.?Listening is a superpower.

12.?What might happen if you asked better questions?

13.?A leader’s presence is a function of their ability to be present. That is far more important than their position or hierarchical power.

14.?Teamership is the power or ability to contribute to collective performance.

15.?Teamership is simultaneously the most valuable and undervalued form of leadership in most organisations.

16.?The #1 reason that strategy fails is a lack of horizontal collaboration.

Professor Geoff Martin, Melbourne Business School

17.?Interacting with other teams might be just as important as within-team interactions.

O’Neill & Salas

18.?Interrogate success. We are usually great at investigating what went wrong and how to avoid repeating that. There is value in understanding what went well so that you can apply that again.

19.?Your org chart is lying to you.

Here are some stats to back that up:

• 75% of teams don’t exist on the org chart (ADPRI)
• 95% of knowledge workers are on multiple teams. (O’Leary, et al)

That means that the org chart is an ineffective way to identify leaders and leadership.

20.?Your team’s results don’t always reflect your team’s actions/behaviours.

Sometimes you get favourable results in spite of your behaviours. Sometimes you do all of the things that you expect to work and don’t get the results.

Decoupling behaviours and results is powerful.?

21.?The most common mistake in leadership is trying to solve an adaptive problem with a technical solution.

Ronald Heifetz

22.?The most powerful force on human behaviour is the status quo.

The most reliable predictor of the behavioural patterns in your team next week are the behavioural patterns from last week.

23.?Do something or live with it.

If you are not happy with the status quo in your teams, your first choice is to either do something to change the status quo or to live with things as they are.

Not making a decision is actually deciding to live with it, which might be OK.

Both doing something or living with it are valid options. It may be that doing something is not worth the risk, effort or investment.

24. On good teams, coaches keep players accountable. On great teams, players keep players accountable. Joe Dumars

25. Here are two questions to ask yourself and others.

Am I bringing my best?

Am I bringing out the best in others?

Some questions for you to consider this week:

• What are the challenges that your teams face this year?
• Are there any ideas that will help you elevate the performance of your teams in 2025?

Go well,

Keegan