Why smart teams struggle at first. And how they eventually thrive.

When a new leadership team takes office, whether in government, a hospital, a university, a municipality, or a growing company, something more begins than a new strategic period. An intense team process starts. A group of professionals walks into the boardroom together, each with their own background, expertise, organizational culture, and personal style. Some are seasoned executives. Others are stepping into a senior role for the very first time. What binds them on paper is a shared strategy or business plan. What still needs to bind them in practice is mutual trust, a shared way of working, and the ability to turn differences into productive collaboration.

For the team leader, whether that is a CEO, director, dean, or department head, this creates a dual challenge: providing substantive direction while simultaneously shaping the group into a cohesive, high-performing team. Most organizations expect leadership teams to “just work.” After all, these are experienced professionals. But expertise does not automatically equal teamwork. How does a group of capable individuals evolve into an effective collective? And what role does leadership play in that journey?

In this blog, I explore those questions through the four stages of Bruce Tuckman:

1. forming
2. storming
3. norming
4. performing

Developmental stages of team formation

The six success factors described by Vroemen offer a useful way to assess how well a team is functioning. They help you reflect on goals, communication, responsibility, and adaptability. But they say less about how a brand-new team actually develops. In training and education, Tuckman’s phases are widely used to understand how groups evolve over time. Teachers learn about these stages when they start working with a new class. The same logic applies to executive teams, project groups, and change coalitions.

According to Bruce Tuckman, every group moves through different stages: forming, storming, norming, and performing (and later he added transforming). This model of group dynamics dates back to 1965, yet it remains remarkably practical. It offers a powerful lens to interpret what is happening beneath the surface when teams collaborate.

Forming

This is the starting phase. Individuals are still operating largely on their own. The atmosphere is often polite, sometimes enthusiastic. People explore boundaries and begin building initial trust.

Team members want to understand who they are working with, professionally and personally. What expertise does everyone bring? How do they make decisions? What motivates them? In this phase, the first informal norms emerge, and an initial hierarchy often takes shape. There is a foundation for collaboration, but the team is not yet operating at its full potential.

As a team leader, your primary role in this phase is to create safety and equality. Ensure that everyone has space to contribute. Clarify expectations. Avoid giving more influence to those you already know well. Early signals about inclusion and fairness matter enormously.

Storming

This is where real team development begins. Differences become visible. Disagreements arise about priorities, roles, decision-making, and standards. What initially felt smooth may suddenly become tense.

In leadership teams, this phase often coincides with the moment when strategic plans need to be translated into concrete choices. That is where trade-offs become real. People discover that they interpret agreements differently. They may have different views on pace, accountability, or risk. This stage can feel uncomfortable. Discussions become sharper. Emotions may surface.

Yet this phase is crucial. Without storming, there is no real alignment, only superficial harmony.

As a leader, it is important not to suppress friction too quickly. Create space for disagreement. Stay neutral where possible. Help the team articulate underlying assumptions. Productive conflict, when handled well, strengthens trust rather than undermines it.

Norming

If a team successfully navigates storming, clarity begins to emerge. Members agree on how they want to collaborate. Roles are clarified. Decision-making processes become explicit. Expectations are aligned.

The team recognizes that constant confrontation is not effective. Instead, they consciously establish working agreements. Trust deepens because commitments are clearer. Feedback becomes more constructive. Collaboration becomes more predictable.

In this phase, it helps to formalize what has been learned. Make agreements visible. Reflect on what works. Reinforce shared norms. What was once implicit becomes explicit.

Performing

At this stage, the team operates at a high level. Trust is present. Agreements are shared. The group no longer spends most of its energy on internal coordination but on achieving results.

The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Team members challenge and inspire one another. They balance collective responsibility with individual ownership. They focus on shared goals rather than personal agendas. The team is also open to learning from outside perspectives.

For leaders, the task shifts from building structure to maintaining vitality. Even high-performing teams require ongoing reflection. Group dynamics can shift. New challenges can trigger regression to earlier stages. Regularly discussing collaboration keeps performance sustainable.

Six success factors for a successful team

Vroemen (1995, 2017) describes six factors that characterize strong teams: motivating goals, shared responsibility, open communication, respect for differences, flexibility, and initiative.

He calls this framework the “team wheel.” While the formal leader plays an important role, responsibility for team effectiveness does not rest on one person alone. Every team member contributes to the quality of collaboration.

Transforming

Later, Tuckman added a fifth phase: transforming, the conscious ending or renewal of the group. This occurs when a project concludes, a leadership team changes composition, or an organization restructures.

New members and subgroup formation

When new members join a team that is already in the norming or performing phase, integration can be challenging. The existing team may unconsciously protect its routines. The newcomer may struggle to find their place. In some cases, the team temporarily returns to the storming phase to renegotiate roles and expectations.

Subgroups may also emerge over time. Alliances can form. Criticism may become more personal. In such moments, leadership attention to psychological safety and trust becomes essential.

Why this matters

Every team has a dynamic, a certain energy, flow, and rhythm. Ignoring that dynamic does not make it disappear. Paying conscious attention to it, however, allows you to influence it positively. Factors such as status, leadership style, psychological safety, proximity (especially in hybrid teams), and trust all shape how teams evolve.

Tuckman’s model is not a rigid law of nature, nor is it perfectly scientifically validated. In practice, stages may overlap or occur in a different order. Still, the phases are highly recognizable and useful for interpreting what is happening inside teams, whether you are leading an executive board, facilitating a project group, or guiding a virtual change team.

High-performing teams do not emerge by accident. They develop, step by step.

Huib Koeleman