Team Performance Leadership Strategies

I keep returning to Damon Centola’s research on how #change spreads. Not because it’s clever. Because it’s true. Centola found that change doesn’t move like information. You can’t push it through announcements or clever messaging. It spreads through behavior, #trust, and networks. He calls it complex contagion, and it tracks with what I see inside organizations every day. People don’t change because someone at the top says so. They change when they see people they trust doing something new. Then they see it again. Then maybe one more time. That’s when it starts to feel real. That’s when it moves. Here’s what Centola’s research shows actually makes change stick: - Multiple exposures. Once isn’t enough. People need to encounter the new behavior several times from different people. - Trusted messengers. It’s not about role or rank. It’s about credibility in the day-to-day. - Strong ties. Close, high-trust relationships are where change actually moves. - Visible behavior. People need to see it being done, not just hear about it. - Reinforcement over time. Real change takes repetition. One wave won’t do it. This flips most #ChangeManagement upside down. It’s not about the rollout or coms plan. It’s about reinforcing new behaviors inside the real social structure of the organization. So, if you are a part of change, ask your team and self: 1. Who are the people others watch? 2. Where are the trusted connections? 3. Is the behavior visible and repeated? 4. Are you designing for reinforcement or just awareness? Change isn’t a #communication problem. It’s a network pattern. That’s the shift. That’s the work. And that’s what I help teams build.

In a world where most leaders focus on individual performance, collective psychological context determines what's truly possible. According to Deloitte's 2024 study, organizations with psychologically safe environments see 41% higher innovation and 38% better talent retention. Here are three ways you can leverage psychological safety for extraordinary team results: 👉 Create "failure celebration" rituals. Publicly acknowledging mistakes transforms the risk psychology of your entire team. Design structured processes that recognize learning from setbacks as a core organizational strength. 👉 Implement "idea equality" protocols. Separate concept evaluation from originator status to unleash true perspective diversity. Create discussion frameworks where every voice has equal weight, regardless of hierarchical position. 👉 Practice "curiosity responses”. Replace judgment with genuine inquiry when challenges arise. Build neural safety by responding with questions that explore understanding before concluding. Neuroscience confirms this approach works: psychologically safe environments trigger oxytocin release, enhancing trust, creativity, and collaborative problem-solving at a neurological level. Your team's exceptional performance isn't built on individual brilliance—it emerges from an environment where collective intelligence naturally flourishes. Coaching can help; let's chat. Follow Joshua Miller #workplace #performance #coachingtips

In my experience after leading so many teams, the biggest reason high performers get demotivated isn’t workload or compensation. Instead, it often boils down to: 1. Lack of visibility and recognition with senior leadership 2. Feeling unheard within the system 3. Having limited say in the type of work they take on 4. Limited independence to apply creative solutions 5. Being micromanaged Some of the best successes I’ve seen in my teams came from spotting high performers early, giving them the right platform, and empowering them with the independence to innovate and shine. Recognition, voice, and autonomy often matter more than perks.

Here’s a hard truth: You can’t solve your team’s challenges with the same mindset that created them. That’s why in every training or webinar I lead, I begin by exposing the common misconceptions that hold teams back. I guide leaders and teams through a structured process of self-reflection, challenge, and practical application, enabling them to break free from outdated patterns and embrace fresh, inclusive approaches. Here are 5 common challenges I see in the teams I work with—and the mindset shifts that help them overcome these barriers: 1️⃣ Challenge: Team members don’t feel safe to speak up, share ideas, or admit mistakes. ↪ 🧠 Mindset Shift: From "Mistakes are a sign of weakness" to "Mistakes are opportunities for growth." 2️⃣ Challenge: Groupthink dominates, and team members feel pressure to conform. ↪ 🧠 Mindset Shift: From "Harmony is always the goal" to "Healthy conflict drives innovation." 3️⃣ Challenge: Teams feel disengaged and undervalued when decisions are made without their input. ↪ 🧠 Mindset Shift: From "Leaders know best" to "The best ideas come from collective intelligence." 4️⃣ Challenge: Teams stick to safe, predictable solutions because they fear taking risks or failing. ↪ 🧠 Mindset Shift: From "Failure must be avoided" to "Failure is part of the path to success." 5️⃣ Challenge: Teams resist new initiatives or changes, feeling left out or unsure of the benefits. ↪ 🧠 Mindset Shift: From "Change is dictated from the top" to "Change is co-created with the team." Awareness isn't enough. You need to move beyond the thinking that created the problems in the first place and then step into a psychologically safe space for real growth and innovation. 🤔 P.S.: What mindset shift do you believe is most needed in today's workplaces?

How do you help your team members handle challenges—without taking on their challenges for them? 

In working through a challenge and learning from it, your team is able to grow. Think about the last time a team member told you about a challenge they had…and then somehow it was turned over to you to manage, or you picked it up and solved it.

You might be so good at putting out fires you didn’t even realize it. 

I get it. I’m an action-oriented person. I love to solve problems. I love to support my team.

A leader’s job is to coach team members to solve their problems and handle difficult situations, not necessarily do it for them. 

I definitely learned this the hard way as a new leader.

First, I drowned in directly managing the team’s challenges plus my own. Then, I learned my efforts to help my team unintentionally showed them that only I can handle something, or to expect that I will.

I still take seriously my role as a leader to remove barriers and intervene, as appropriate—but I also remind my team members that I believe in their abilities.

Here are three steps to help your team members navigate their own challenges (with your support and guidance, of course). ASK QUESTIONS Ask your team member open-ended questions to help them think through the challenge. You might say, “What do you think the next step should be?” or “How should we handle this challenge?” You want to draw out their perspective and demonstrate that this is something you expect them to manage. DETERMINE YOUR ROLE When your team member starts talking about their challenge, try to determine if they need to vent or need you to do something. Because I have a tendency to jump into things, I have to catch myself to ask if the team member wants feedback, support, or action. If they want feedback or support,they’re showing they intend to manage through the challenge and would benefit from your guidance. If they request action, dig a little deeper before you take this on. Try to understand if they aren't confident in their choices and need reassurance, or if they're delegating the tough stuff to avoid managing it themselves. REINFORCE YOUR TEAM MEMBER’S STRENGTHS Acknowledge your team member’s challenge—and their ability to get through it. Reassure them that you believe they can handle it. You may remind them of how they successfully handled a difficult situation in the past. Most importantly, remember that the leader’s role is not to solve their team's problems—but to help their team become better problem solvers.

When we hear “play” at work, we think of Fun Fridays, team lunches, or a table tennis table, and those moments matter. But there’s another kind of play we talk about far less. It’s what happens when teams are free to experiment, think beyond the obvious, and adapt on the fly. That kind of play matters most when roadmaps shift, priorities change, and ambiguity is part of the job. 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. They help teams practice tough decisions and unexpected shifts without the real-world risk. It’s a safe way to build confidence under pressure. 𝐎𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤. Things like mandatory trainings or help desk ticket resolution. When you turn them into team challenges—with leaderboards, clear goals, and public shout-outs in the all-hands meeting—or role-playing exercises, these low-engagement tasks become visible wins. 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭. Imagine creating a system where every employee can submit ideas anytime, not just during annual innovation drives. But here’s the twist: ideas don’t just sit in a database. They get visibility through peer voting, expert review, and transparent feedback. And the best part? Top teams/ideas earn rewards: time to lead pilot projects, budget for testing, or public shoutouts from leadership. 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞. 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭. When learning is playful, people retain more, participate more, and most importantly, care more. If we want teams to take initiative, grow into owners, and lead from the front, we have to give them room to play. 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤. 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭: 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲. #Leadership #Innovation #FutureOfWork #PlayatWork

When I joined Khan Academy, we were just four people in a small office, united by a vision of bringing free education to everyone, everywhere. Over the years, we grew to hundreds of employees, reaching over 100 million students worldwide. This exponential growth brought a significant challenge: how do you scale a team without losing the culture and values that made the organization special? The most crucial lesson I learned was that culture doesn't scale automatically - it demands constant attention and effort. The best way I found to attend to culture was to treat your culture like a product. You have to design it. As we grew, it became increasingly important to consider how to help team members learn about and carry the culture forward. Here are three strategies that helped us maintain our culture during rapid growth: 1. Over-communicate the Mission and the Principles that Guide it: As our team grew, we doubled down on ensuring everyone felt connected to our mission and understood our principles. Three of the most important principles were to focus on the student, Always be learning, and deliver exceptional ROI for donors. We regularly shared stories of how our work impacted students' lives, and what we learned from failures and successes, and calculated the number of learning minutes to keep the team aligned with our "why" and “how” and motivated by our shared purpose. 2. Create Rituals that Reinforce Values: We have meaningful rituals, such as starting meetings with student success stories and celebrating what teams learned, not just what they accomplished when we gave status updates. We also organized a yearly talent show and encouraged people to showcase new talents and skills. These practices served as constant reminders of our principles in action. 3. Adapt, but Stay True to Core Values: Growth necessitated changes in processes, tools, and communication methods. For example, we used to be able to share what we were learning during all-hands meetings, but at some point, it became impossible for each team to give an update. As part of our commitment to learning, we began to document our learnings and shared long-form asynchronous updates with everyone. We then shared summaries during all-hands meetings. Scaling a team while preserving its culture is challenging, and we weren’t always successful, either. But we were lucky that the team let us know when they thought we weren’t living up to the mission or principles and encouraged us to make changes.  It is achievable if you remain open to feedback and stay focused on core principles. What strategies have you employed to maintain culture as your team or organization grew?

As your team grows, your leadership style must evolve.    Julie Zhuo, Facebook's Vice President of Design, shares her insights on adapting to team growth.    When managing a small team, you're hands-on, directly overseeing projects and providing feedback. As your team expands, you shift to indirect management, delegating tasks and trusting your team to execute.    The way people perceive you changes too. You transition from being seen as a colleague or mentor to being viewed as a leader.    This shift requires navigating new relationship dynamics while maintaining open communication. With growth comes the need to constantly shift contexts. You'll find yourself juggling multiple projects and priorities simultaneously, a stark contrast to focusing on a few projects at a time with a smaller team.   Learning to pick your battles becomes crucial. More team members mean more potential disagreements. Knowing which issues to address and which to let go is key to maintaining productivity and focus.   Perhaps most importantly, people-centric skills become paramount. Effective communication, empathy, and relationship-building are essential for managing a successful, high-performing team. While core management principles remain constant, the day-to-day realities change significantly as your team grows.    Understanding these shifts helps you prepare for the challenges and rewards of leading a larger team, ensuring you can adapt and thrive in your evolving leadership role.   #Leadership #Growth #Team #Management #Adaptive

When I transitioned to leading a 70-person growth team, a pivotal question came up: Should I adapt my leadership style now? 🤔 It's the inner sense of curiosity that drives change and progress. That question helped me dive deeper and dive into a transformative mindset shift. Here're the insights I've learned from this journey: 🗺️ 1. Transitioning from directing to clarity-giving It wasn't about giving a defined strategy blueprint, but about providing clarity. My job became about ensuring everyone understood our mission and strategic pillars, their roles, and how their work contributes to our larger goal. 🌉 2. Building bridges between managers and individual contributors My focus shifted to empowering everyone, not just the managers. I worked to create an environment where every team member, regardless of their role, felt valued and heard. ⚙️ 3. Creating a sync & async touchpoints focused on collaboration The key was to balance asynchronous and synchronous work styles. This meant leveraging tools for async collaboration (eg goal management tooling) while ensuring focused, meaningful interactions during synchronous meetings. 🚀 4. Encouraging a culture of experimentation and big bets I pushed the team to experiment and innovate, encouraging them to make both small iterative changes and bold, strategic leaps. 🛠️ 5. Cultivating small tribes of trust within the larger team Trust took a new dimension. It was about creating numerous small, tightly-knit teams with their unique cultures, all while ensuring they aligned with our broader vision. Navigating these waters wasn't just about leadership. It was about evolving with the team, fostering a culture of trust, innovation, and clarity. 💬 How have you adapted your leadership in larger teams? Share your insights! #leadership #teammanagement #teams #growth

Peers turned into direct reports recently? Find it daunting to balance workplace friendships with leadership formalities? Leading a team of peers who are now direct reports can seem challenging because it requires redefining relationships and establishing authority. Across coaching sessions, I have observed three common challenges that new leaders experience: ⌘ Navigating the role transition and shift in dynamics ⌘ Maintaining impartiality and avoiding bias ⌘ Communicating changes in roles and expectations Effective strategies can enable a new leader to address these challenges and transition from being a peer to an inspiring authority. Here are seven questions to reflect upon: ★ What’s my internal make-up? Do I believe I deserved and earned this role? ★ How open am I to dialogue about new team dynamics? ★ Where can I add more value to my teams? ★ How open am I to regular feedback? ★ What do I admire and appreciate about my teams? ★ How fair are my leadership decisions? ★ Where do I need to enhance my presence to inspire my teams? Focus on enabling the success of the team. Appreciate and acknowledge generously. Show the team you have their best interests at heart. Be patient. Trust is earned and cannot be commanded. Encouraging dialogues, setting clear boundaries, enabling regular feedback sessions, demonstrating fair leadership and embodying the qualities you wish to instil can inspire your teams and establish credibility for your leadership. What else can newly minted leaders do to manage peers who are now direct reports? Do share your valuable inputs #India #LeadershipDevelopment #Peers #ExecutiveCoaching