One day, you were an individual contributor. Now, you are a facilitator. The transition from team member to team leader is paved with tough lessons. Learning to delegate tasks (for real this time), exciting new experiments in time management, and freshly perplexing interpersonal dynamics.
If these are your first steps toward learning how to lead a team, welcome. If you need motivational quotes for your employees or help handcrafting a meaningful yet professional message, have at it! But if you want to know if you’ve really got the stuff to succeed as a team lead, keep reading.
Can anyone learn how to lead a team?
Yes, pretty much anyone can gain the skills necessary to lead if they want to. Most leaders come to be solely through learning experiences. When they were first assigned the job title, they didn’t exactly know how to lead. It was their job to learn how to do it.
Therein lies the biggest reason people aren’t good leaders. They believe being given the job is a declaration of their existing (maybe “natural-born” or inherent) ability to lead. They do not evolve or adjust to meet the needs of their team.
How good leaders facilitate high-performing teams
We all want to be seen as helpful, powerful, benevolent, smart, whatever. But it’s your team that will prove how good a leader you are. We’ve shared some key characteristics of high-performing teams. Here’s a breakdown of how those qualities come to be through effective leadership.
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High-performing team quality: |
How leaders make it happen: |
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They are each aware of their individual strengths |
Leaders give them opportunities to discover these strengths. When they do, their leader points it out and praises it as part of a successful feedback loop. Employees are now empowered to capitalize on this strength. |
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They have survived challenges together |
They have a leader who gives them enough autonomy. Together, they have experienced trial and error, eventually landing at innovation. They’ve also been given space and expectations for resolving conflict. |
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Members have differing perspectives on projects and problems |
Good leaders embrace diversity. They’re able to envision how people of different skill sets and backgrounds contribute to collective success. It is seen as more valuable than the generic product of groupthink. |
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They engage in team rituals and team-building exercises |
Leaders initiate and facilitate these activities on a consistent basis. However, they let the team adjust and adapt them to better fit their culture. They now have their own customs and exercises for fine-tuning team skills and staying connected. |
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Goals and results remain the primary area of focus |
Teams receive clear expectations, resources, motivation, and other instructions from leaders. They’re not subjected to constant distractions. Most of all, leaders model and champion accountability. Everyone feels responsible for their part. |
The Big Three: Building a foundation you can lead from
Effective leadership is a metric ton of tiny skills and scenarios squished together. What strengths benefit you most differ by project, industry, culture, location, and about a million other factors.
Therefore, let’s focus on the three absolute must-have conditions. This is what it takes to foster the high-performing team that exists as a testament to your leadership skills.
Communication
It’s your knowledge and expertise that qualify you for a job as a leader. However, your team most likely won’t care where you went to school or what you did before this. They will judge how capable you are based on your communication skills.
This isn’t all vocab. It is authenticity, consistency, and clarity. Emotional intelligence, transparency, and a willingness to listen.
Gallup’s Q2 2025 engagement survey found that fewer than half of employees strongly agree they know what is expected of them. Less than 30% firmly agree that their opinions count.
Some ways team leads handle communication:
- Setting clear guidelines and channels for communication
- Keeping meetings short and to the point
- Regular check-ins with each team member
- Making additional efforts to connect with remote employees
- Avoiding blame culture, interrupting employees, and other toxic communication practices
Leadership styles, hybrid teams, and basic misunderstandings cloud ongoing, productive communication. If this is an area of greater concern for you, get additional, in-depth strategies for improving workplace communication.
Trust
Communication is a mainline contributor to trust. How reliable, understandable, and believable you are in your communications adds up. There are three more key ways to start building team trust as soon as possible:
- Vulnerability. Too many leaders avoid this. It’s really simple: people aren’t as likely to trust an entity they don’t recognize as fallible and human. Admit when you don’t know something. Apologize for mistakes. Accept ideas from team members.
- Foster psychological safety. Toxic leaders think this is about holding hands and soothing crying people, so they don’t do it. Good leaders know it’s about avoiding blame, appreciating (and leveraging!) differences, and being respectful. They can celebrate the lesson learned from a mistake instead of making someone feel small.
- Rituals and shared experiences. To be trusted is to be known at a level beyond the job title. Create small, regular opportunities to socialize or collaborate on something fun. Test small rituals or activities and let team members choose what they like.
Ultimately, so much of building trust as a leader comes down to how you right wrongs. Accountability, level-headedness, and offering solutions earn you respect. Letting the human you manifest as an untouchable or wounded ego creates great divides.
Recognition and appreciation
Circling back to that Q2 employee survey! Almost three-quarters of employees do not strongly feel encouraged to grow or connected to a collective purpose.
This is because recognition is treated like an occasional reward for high performers. People who know how to lead a team understand that recognition is a non-negotiable daily practice that creates high performers. Below the fold, you have highly engaged employees who persist in doing their best.
These assessments of what is right and wrong about workplace recognition barely skim the surface. Here are some examples of effective and ineffective recognition that can help illustrate why this may be the most important initiative a leader takes on.
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Effective recognition |
Ineffective recognition |
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Praises someone’s good deed or idea as soon as they share it |
“Saves” praise for an occasion down the line |
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Is very specific, naming the behavior and its impact at work (ex, “That’s an inspired choice that will save us so much time!”) |
Is vague and doesn’t mention impact (ex, “Great job!”) |
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Covers the smallest wins, from correcting a typo to a great call with a client |
Is reserved for milestones and big projects |
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Can be exchanged between everyone–peer to peer, leader to employee, employee to leader |
Is only passed from leader to employee |
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Includes celebrations teams help choose and participate in |
Includes rote “rewards” given without thought, like a box of donuts left in the break room |
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Freely and informally given through accessible methods that won’t interrupt their work |
Administered through tools and methods that feel formal and impersonal |
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Personalized to individual preferences and interests |
Everyone receives the same type of recognition at the same time and place |
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Is tied to an organization and culture’s core values |
Seems to appear at random; what’s praised today is ignored tomorrow |
The bottom line is that leaders should focus on continuous recognition over traditional recognition. It’s better for culture-building and engagement. It also does not require more money or effort.
Why team leads love HeyTaco
Good leaders know that top-down recognition isn’t all there is to it. They can hand out compliments every day, and still miss small stuff that makes a huge impact. Peer-to-peer recognition tools like HeyTaco let everyone share genuine praise without formal actions or big disruptions.
Most importantly, it makes every team member feel like they matter. Our friends at Haze Shift achieved the following with HeyTaco:
- A 30% increase in team engagement
- 90% of employees rating their experience above 3 on a 5-point scale
- A record-high satisfaction score of 4.50
Good leaders have engaged teams. Get provable results with a free trial of HeyTaco.
How to lead a team FAQ
What are 5 common responsibilities of a team leader?
The most common responsibilities of team leaders are:
- Communicating goals and setting expectations
- Assigning and delegating tasks
- Clear, consistent communication as the primary point of contact
- Employee motivation through coaching and recognition
- Resolving issues and conflicts, navigating obstacles
What are the signs of toxic leadership?
The signs employees cite most are micromanagement, lack of empathy, vague or changing expectations, and discrimination.
What should new team leaders do first?
New leaders need to engage with team members one-on-one. From there, they observe processes and ask questions. The first month is also about setting a cadence for consistent actions (weekly 1:1s, daily recognition). Read more about what goes down in your first 30 days as a manager.
Is a team leader a supervisor?
They can be, but if supervising was the main objective, they’d be team supervisor, not team leader. True leadership requires much more communication, coaching, and motivation. Tracking and overseeing progress may be part of a leader’s job, or the responsibility of a defined, higher-up supervisor.
How should leaders handle conflict?
A company’s culture and core values will determine the best course of action. In general, good leaders give everyone a chance to be heard. They should maintain and protect boundaries, ensuring the resolution process stays respectful.
It may also be appropriate to guide conflicting parties through differing perspectives. Allow them to brainstorm resolutions that address everyone’s concerns.
