10 Timeless Keys to Developing High-Performing Teams in 2023 and Beyond

The reality of today's leaders is complex. Leaders face many challenges and are under more pressure than ever to build high-performance teams and drive bottom-line results faster. The pandemic instigated a massive disruption worldwide and permanently altered the employee and business landscape in the last three years, creating challenges in retaining employees with the great resignation, quiet quitting, and now for the first time, five generations are in the workforce.

So, how does a leader build a high-performance team and get better results? How does a leader build deeper Trust, engender more profound commitment, and instill positive energy across the multi-generational workforce to move people forward and achieve organizational goals?

I promise you that after you have hired well, the steps in this article will guide you in developing a high-performance team today and into the future.

1. Enhance Trust

Building mutual Trust is a crucial competency for leaders and the foundation of a high-performing team. Trust is created within the culture, reflected through aligned words and behaviors. As a leader, communicate effectively, declare your intent, be honest, and walk the talk. Get the culture right with Trust so teams thrive, not just survive.

For teams to reach their highest levels of potential and productivity, there must first be high levels of Trust. When team members who can count on each other, respectfully challenge each other, trust each other, and are valued for their contributions, teams and organizations are off to a great start to experience unparalleled success and prosperity.

2. Demonstrate a Flexible Leadership Style

Times call for a more inspirational and flexible leadership style. Adapting your leadership approach to different cultures, generations, situations, strengths, needs, and skill sets is essential. Recognizing and being aware of adjusting your leadership style requires emotional intelligence and empathy. Embrace, maximize, and align different cultures, ages, skills, and experiences. Offer every team member a chance to demonstrate leadership with all the context necessary to contribute to team success. It's far more effective to have a flexible leadership style and prioritize diversity as complex as the workforce is today.

3. Inspire a Shared Vision and Values

Leaders who emphasize the "WHY" behind their products or services show people how they fit into this big picture, why they should care, and how employees contribute to the organization's goals and improve the world in their daily decisions and actions inspire employees. Millennials and Gen Z especially want to know that their work is meaningful and that their values align with the company's values.

4. Foster Hybrid and Remote Team Connection

The modern workplace has changed over the past few years, and it's not returning to how it was before COVID. Companies are struggling to get employees back into the office and to build a sense of community where every employee feels connected, engaged, and valued, no matter where they're working. How employees connect matters more than where they connect. Leaders must elevate their interpersonal skills to help foster stronger team connections, empowerment, and engagement no matter where employees work.

5. Strengthen Accountability

Accountability has two requirements: first, not shirk one's responsibilities, and second, to support the team's shared goals by extending oneself and supporting team members to achieve the best possible results. A leader must ensure clear goals, expectations, roles, and responsibilities and that everyone is on board.

It's also essential to have an efficient and effective process, eliminate distractions, measure what matters, and help remove obstacles. Each member must have skin in the game and hold each other accountable, returning to a foundation of Trust, respect, and transparent communication. This way, the team and the individual can efficiently surpass goals, targets, and deadlines.

6. Develop and Coach

The top priority of every great leader is to coach individuals so they can become their best and develop a pipeline of future leaders for the organization, and your relationship with your direct reports is critically essential. Employees need skill training and career development to succeed in their roles. Take the time to get to know your people: their talents, strengths, gaps, motivators, career aspirations, communication styles, and other insights. Provide realistic optimism, constructive feedback, regular check-ins, and the training and tools they need to succeed.

Encourage your teams to continuously improve, stretch, and learn from their mistakes so they can rise to their potential. The more you can develop your people and their competence, connecting their strengths/talents to an organization's short- and long-term goals, the more likely you will engage and deepen employees' commitment. Organizations must offer career pathways and advancement.

7. Fine-tune Listening Skills

Listening is challenging for a busy leader juggling many competing priorities. Great leaders create a trusted space to listen to their employees actively. The listening process involves four stages: receiving, understanding, evaluating, and responding. As you listen, critically assess and evaluate the message, listen for tone and what is said and not said. Sometimes you must drop out of your head and into your heart to thoroughly understand before responding.

Ask powerful, open-ended questions and remain curious rather than judgmental or critical, even when you feel challenged. After receiving information in the conversation, an effective listener will identify opportunities, obstacles, talents, motivations, and commitments which positively impact the team and goals.

8. Encourage Excellence

Do your best and expect the best in return from your team. When you have built a strong foundation of Trust and keep the bar at Excellence for yourself and every single team member, this is what happens:

• You instill confidence in others, giving them heightened confidence to raise their bar and encourage their peers to keep it high.

• You show your belief in your people, creating a Pygmalion effect. You are creating space for them to reach their full potential and talent.

• People feel they belong, and this ignites contribution.

Then, you will see an increase in the entire team's performance, especially from the middle performers.

9. Show You Care

Leaders who care about their people are courageous. There are enough studies to show that employees care about their relationship with their boss and want to know that they matter and that their work is valued. When leaders care, employees feel a sense of belonging and are happier, more engaged, productive, and loyal. Caring for them helps you lead them to achieve more than they thought possible.

Simple ways to show you care — respect their opinions, perspectives, and ideas, recognize their unique strengths and contributions, and take the time to get to know your team in a more neutral setting, including at company social events or dinners. Putting in the work to get to know your team on a human level strengthens any professional relationship.

10 Celebrate, Reward, and Recognize.

It is a basic human need, and it lets us know that others have seen our work and that our contribution matters. We are fueled by acknowledgment and recognition, inspiring people to reach and surpass their goals. Recognition is often overlooked, and employees want to be more appreciated.

As a leader, find out how your employees like to be recognized. Understand individual motivators – what drives them? What motivates them to work with this company and you? Make it unique to the person and their contribution. To ensure this is done, create criteria, goals, and action plans for employee recognition to help you consistently recognize the actions, behaviors, strengths, and accomplishments you want to foster and reinforce in your organization.

Develop Your Own High-Performing Team

Connecting a group of people who collaborate well, complement differing talents, skills, and experiences, and create an unstoppable force that works persistently toward solving problems and achieving business goals is no small feat. It takes hard work to develop a high-performing team effectively. You may need to step back to define what it means to be a great leader.

If building a high-performance team is something you want to do, you can do it. Getting all this right takes time, commitment, competencies, and emotional intelligence. Experiment with different approaches, expect obstacles, and stay open to continuous learning and feedback. It's not easy to do this; however, it's critical in helping organizations and employees thrive in the world's competitive business landscape, and if accomplished, everyone reaps the rewards.

Filed Under: Influence | Communication | High Performing Teams | Management | Emotional Intelligence | Leadership Coaching | Success