High-Performing Teams Aren't Born – They're Led

Forbes

22-05-2025

By Hilde Rosenboom, Executive Education, ESMT Berlin
In one of our ESMT programs for emerging leaders, young leaders participate in the tower building exercise. Assigned to construction teams and given building blocks, we ask them to construct the tallest possible tower. One team member is the designated leader – they may direct the team, but not touch the blocks. The team's builders may not speak. After a set time, we measure the towers. The teams that build the tallest towers perform the best.
In the second round, leaders must leave their teams. Leaderless and silent, the builders continue. Surprisingly, some teams perform better – building taller towers – without their leaders.
You probably won't doubt that organizations benefit from capable leaders. But what exactly can leaders do to enhance their teams' performance?
Shot of a group of businesspeople stacking building blocks together in an office
In uncertain times, organizations often revert to familiar strategies –focusing on individual performance, efficiency, returning to the office, or protecting the status quo. 'Never change a running system' becomes the guiding principle.
But which of these beliefs are actually supported by science? And are there overlooked, evidence-based levers for improving team performance?
It's time to put the leadership toolbox to the test.
There is a vast array of frameworks, theories, and studies describing the dimensions crucial to team performance. Their sheer volume suggests it is empirically and theoretically nearly impossible to pinpoint where high performance originates and what leaders can do to achieve it.
That's not surprising when you consider how hard it is to define 'high performance.' A high-performing team is one that consistently delivers exceptional results – relative to comparable teams. This definition shows how context-dependent high performance is and underscores the critical role of leadership. Leaders must develop their own context-specific understanding of what high performance and team excellence looks like.
Despite the complexity, research findings and frameworks can be clustered into three key dimensions that leaders can focus on to improve team performance.
The first dimension: a compelling direction with shared vision and goals.
Mission statements and team goals are often carefully crafted to avoid disagreement, which can make them uninspiring. Yet, teamwork is necessary for pursuing goals that cannot be achieved alone – and a team is only as good as its goals.
One key to team success is their continuous engagement with overarching goals, interpreting what they mean in different situations. This sense-making process creates clarity, enabling team members to make better decisions on their own.
A hand places a wooden cube with "T" next to other cubes, spelling out SMART, standing for Specific, ... More Achievable, Measurable, Realistic and Timely concepts.
While 'SMART' goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound) are often cited as best practice, most goals don't – and shouldn't – meet all five criteria. That's why smart goals are really quite dumb.
As psychology has shown, people are more inspired to pursue something than to prevent something. Motivation mainly comes from seeing progress, not only from reaching final goals. Learning goals are more motivating than performance goals – growth matters more than numbers when it comes to motivation. Not all goals need to be quantitative. Stretch goals – ambitious targets – are more motivating than aiming for a minimum goal or a goal that is certainly achievable.
The second dimension: a strong team characterized by high psychological safety.
In our programs, leaders can assess the level of psychological safety in their teams. According to Amy Edmonson, the Harvard professor and researcher who coined the term, psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.
Assessment results often land in the middle range, with leaders frequently astonished by how much room there is for improvement. The absence of psychological safety is not easily spotted – it shows most in what teams don't do: They don't disagree, propose unusual ideas, or raise difficult questions. They remain silent. Yet, psychological safety is one of the most powerful levers for high-performing teams.
Google's Project Aristotle found that the most critical variable for team success wasn't individual talent or team composition, but psychological safety. Team performance exceeds the sum of individual performers when psychological safety is high. That's why overemphasizing individual performance diminishes team performance.
The third dimension: a supportive work environment with the right resources, information, and space for reflection.
The 'sandwich feedback' approach (praise – critique – praise) is so familiar that most people see through it: the praise merely cushions the critique. This exposes a broader issue: feedback usually follows problems, not successes, and often targets individuals rather than teams.
But it pays off to give and solicit feedback on team performance, after both successful and unsuccessful efforts. Accounting for the whole team's perspective, not just individuals, can uncover additional levers to improve team performance. When a team reflects together, leaders can more easily identify ways to improve the team's work environment or structure.
Cropped shot of two businesspeople stacking wooden blocks together in an office
While leadership may seem redundant in some tightly constrained situations – as the tower exercise suggests – leaders are far from optional when it comes to sustained high performance. They play a defining role in shaping what performance means, motivating teams through meaningful and challenging goals, fostering a psychologically safe environment, and enabling learning, growth, and feedback.
High performance is never a fixed formula. It requires leaders to adapt continuously to context, challenge assumptions about what works, and use research-backed tools to reflect on and fine-tune their leadership approach. Done right, leadership doesn't just manage performance – it inspires teams to build higher than they imagined possible.