You may have the most talented, experienced leadership team, but if your team consistently underperforms, it's costing your organization opportunities, innovation, and often your best talent.
When you dig deeper, you see signs of trouble:
Many teams struggle to achieve their potential because they lack cohesion – the essential ingredient that transforms individual contributors into extraordinary teams.
As an Authorized Partner for The Five Behaviors® model, I've witnessed firsthand how The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team transforms team dynamics and performance.
Developed by Patrick Lencioni and based on his bestselling book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team," this model provides a clear, actionable path to building truly cohesive teams.
The Five Behaviors model is built on the idea that great teams demonstrate five key behaviors in a specific sequence. Each behavior builds upon the previous one, creating a pyramid structure where trust forms the foundation and results sit at the top.
This model is uniquely powerful because of the integrated assessment component.
Before workshops begin, team members complete a comprehensive profile that measures their team's current state across all five behaviors. This assessment provides a concrete starting point and measurable metrics for improvement.
At the foundation of the pyramid is vulnerability-based trust. This isn't simply predictive trust ("I trust you'll meet the deadline") but the willingness to be genuinely transparent and honest with one another.
When team members trust each other at this fundamental level, they:
Building vulnerability-based trust is challenging because it requires team members to overcome the natural self-preservation instincts that exist in professional environments. Many executives have been trained throughout their careers to project competence and certainty – making vulnerability feel counterintuitive.
With trust established, teams can engage in the second behavior: healthy conflict around ideas. This is passionate, unfiltered debate focused on concepts and issues – not personalities or politics.
Many teams mistake artificial harmony for healthy team dynamics. However, the absence of conflict usually signals disengagement, not alignment.
Teams that trust each other can engage in productive disagreement because:
Signs your team has unhealthy conflict patterns include:
The third behavior is commitment – the ability to make clear decisions and stick to them. Commitment is not consensus. Rather, it's the ability to achieve buy-in even from team members who initially disagreed with the decision.
This is where the connection between behaviors becomes clear: Without trust, teams avoid conflict. Without conflict, they lack the robust debate necessary to air all perspectives. Without exploring all perspectives, team members struggle to truly commit to decisions.
True commitment is characterized by:
The fourth behavior is peer-to-peer accountability – the willingness of team members to call out performance or behaviors that might hurt the team.
Most organizations rely on managers to hold direct reports accountable. However, the most effective accountability comes horizontally from peers rather than vertically from authority.
When team members hold each other accountable:
Accountability requires significant trust, comfort with conflict, and clear commitment. Without these foundations, team members typically avoid the discomfort of challenging their peers.
At the top of the pyramid is a focus on collective results. This means prioritizing team outcomes over individual recognition, departmental goals, or personal advancement.
Achieving this level of cohesion means:
Many teams struggle with focusing on collective results because organizational structures, compensation systems, and career advancement often reinforce individual or departmental success. Overcoming these systemic challenges requires intentional effort.
89% of Five Behaviors learners say it improved their team's effectiveness.
But the impact of the Five Behaviors often extends far beyond the team itself.
Organizations experience:
Reflecting on your own team, which of these behaviors presents your greatest opportunity for growth?
Teams that master these five behaviors consistently outperform their peers and create more fulfilling work environments.
As an Authorized Partner for The Five Behaviors, I facilitate workshops to guide teams through the framework to become cohesive and high-performing. Learn more about Five Behaviors workshops with Elevate2Grow, or book a meeting with Tracy to explore your options!