#31 – From Trust to Results: The Five Behaviours Of A Cohesive Team

Welcome back to Impactful Teamwork! I’m Julia Felton, your host and guide, and today, we’re diving into The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team. Based on the transformative model by Patrick Lencioni, these behaviours provide a roadmap for building cohesive teams that collaborate, communicate, and create impact. Here, I’ll walk you through each behaviour, highlighting why it’s crucial for teamwork success and how each behaviour builds on the others to form a resilient, high-performing team.

1. Trust: The Essential Foundation of Team Cohesion

At the heart of any cohesive team lies trust. This is not just surface-level trust; it’s vulnerability-based trust, where team members feel safe to be open, admit mistakes, and ask for help. In a trusting environment, team members can shed their protective layers, confident that their peers have good intentions. This level of trust creates psychological safety—a place where everyone feels comfortable enough to be themselves without fear of judgment or retribution.

In teams where trust is absent, people expend energy hiding their weaknesses or hesitating to seek help, which erodes productivity and leads to missed opportunities for collaboration. With trust, however, team members can leverage each other’s strengths, creating a foundation where everyone feels secure to perform at their best. Trust is indeed the glue that holds a team together and sets the stage for all other behaviours.

2. Conflict: Transforming Disagreement into Productive Dialogue

With trust established, teams can now embrace healthy conflict. Conflict doesn’t have to mean tension or aggression; rather, it’s a willingness to have open, sometimes passionate, debates about ideas. When team members feel safe, they’re more likely to voice their opinions and challenge each other’s ideas, creating a fertile ground for innovative solutions and creative problem-solving.

In my experience, many people are uncomfortable with conflict, often viewing it as disruptive. Yet, avoiding conflict only suppresses valuable input and leads to unspoken issues that can weaken team dynamics. Healthy conflict keeps teams aligned and prevents unresolved issues from festering. When approached constructively, it leads to richer discussions, more thoughtful decisions, and higher buy-in from team members.

3. Commitment: Creating Clarity and Alignment

The next building block, commitment, stems from team members feeling that their perspectives have been heard and valued. When teams engage in productive conflict, they arrive at decisions more willingly, even if there are initial disagreements. In cohesive teams, commitment means clarity around decisions, with every team member bought into the plan, regardless of personal opinions.

One of the major barriers to commitment is the need for certainty or unanimous agreement. The reality is, not every decision will have clear-cut answers or satisfy everyone’s preferences. However, when team members have had a chance to voice concerns, they are more likely to support the final decision. In this way, commitment ensures that teams move forward together with shared goals and collective focus.

4. Accountability: Holding Each Other to High Standards

In cohesive teams, accountability is more than just a buzzword; it’s the willingness of team members to hold each other to high standards. Accountability involves constructive feedback and the courage to challenge teammates when performance or behavior isn’t up to par. Rather than waiting for leaders to address issues, cohesive teams take ownership of accountability.

Avoiding accountability can lead to a culture of mediocrity, where standards slip, deadlines are missed, and trust erodes. However, teams that hold each other accountable foster a culture of mutual respect and excellence. This kind of accountability is empowering, as it ensures everyone stays aligned with the team’s goals and performance standards.

5. Results: Driving Success Through Collective Goals

The ultimate focus of a cohesive team is achieving results. When team members trust each other, engage in constructive conflict, commit to decisions, and hold each other accountable, they are better positioned to focus on shared results rather than individual agendas. Cohesive teams prioritize collective success over personal gains or departmental silos.

When a team is not aligned on results, individual goals and departmental interests can overshadow team goals, leading to a lack of cohesion. In contrast, when everyone is focused on a common purpose, the team achieves a sense of shared accomplishment and pride. This synergy drives the team’s performance and keeps everyone motivated to contribute to the larger mission.

Building a Cohesive Team: Putting the Behaviours Into Practice

Creating a cohesive team takes intention, patience, and practice. Here are some practical steps to help bring these behaviors to life within your team:

1. Foster Vulnerability-Based Trust: Encourage openness by sharing personal challenges or asking for help in team meetings. Model vulnerability as a leader to create a safe space for others to do the same.

2. Embrace Healthy Conflict: Set ground rules for debates that focus on ideas, not personal attacks. Encourage team members to voice differing perspectives, recognizing that respectful disagreement strengthens decision-making.

3. Commit to Decisions as a Team: Make sure every team member understands the “why” behind each decision. Regularly check for alignment by encouraging everyone to share their understanding of goals and next steps.

4. Hold Each Other Accountable: Establish peer accountability by encouraging constructive feedback. Acknowledge achievements and address performance gaps promptly to keep everyone aligned.

5. Focus on Collective Results: Reinforce the importance of shared goals, celebrating team wins and learning from setbacks together. Shift the focus from individual accomplishments to collective success.

Conclusion: Embracing Teamwork as a Competitive Advantage

The journey to creating a cohesive team starts with trust and builds through conflict, commitment, accountability, and a shared focus on results. When each of these behaviors is nurtured, teams become resilient, adaptive, and high-performing—capable of meeting any challenge with a united front.

As I wrap up this episode, I invite you to reflect on these questions: How are you fostering trust within your team? Are you encouraging constructive conflict? Are team members committed to shared goals? Do they hold each other accountable? And finally, is everyone focused on collective results?

Teamwork is indeed a superpower, and cohesive teams have the potential to transform organisations. If you’d like to explore how these principles could apply to your team, let’s connect! Building cohesive teams is my passion, and I’m excited to support leaders in creating high-performing, resilient teams that drive impactful results.

Have an amazing week, and here’s to building the cohesive teams that make our organisations thrive!

Show Notes:

Here are the highlights from this episode: