13 Ways Your Leadership Might Be Limiting Your Team’s Potential

(Originally published in Brainz Magazine - July 2025)

Are you leading in a way that builds a high-performing leadership team, or unintentionally contributing to the very issues you're trying to solve?

As a coach, I often work with leaders who want to lift their leadership team’s performance. Quite often, the most meaningful change starts with the leader and the structures they lead with.

Use this list of 13 checkpoints to reflect on your leadership and uncover leverage points to unlock your team's full potential.

1. You’re Not Addressing Poor Behaviour

The worst behaviour you tolerate sets the culture of your team.  Many leaders complain about poor behaviour but often take little action to address it.

When poor behaviour is tolerated, other team members (and often the broader business) quietly observe, lose trust and disengage.

Be clear: If a team member isn’t behaving appropriately and you’re not addressing it, that’s your performance issue.

When poor behaviour surfaces, address it as soon as possible. Be curious—seek to understand why it’s happening—then set clear expectations and boundaries for what you want to see moving forward.

2. There Is No Shared Team Understanding

Your team needs an agreed and shared understanding of what desired team behaviours look like—and what happens when those behaviours aren’t upheld.

Work with your team to create a clear "team agreement" that defines desired behaviours, including what those behaviours do and don’t look like in practice. For example, the word respect can mean very different things to different people—be explicit about what respect looks like and what it doesn’t.

Remember to include what happens when someone falls short—and hold each other to it.

3. You’re Not Modelling the Behaviours You Want

If you’re not demonstrating the behaviours you want from your team—like openly admitting mistakes, listening to understand, and demonstrating curiosity instead of judgment—your team won’t either.

You set the tone. If you want to see it, model it consistently and visibly.

4.  You’re Not Clearly Communicating Your Expectations

Your team only know what they know.   If you’re not clearly communicating what’s working—and what’s not—patterns will repeat.

Be direct and specific about what success looks like.  Have open, honest conversations so individuals understand what’s expected of them and feel supported to deliver.  

Clarity prevents misunderstandings, boosts confidence, and builds trust.

5. The Team Doesn’t Really Know Each Other

Trust is the foundation of high-performing teams, and people don’t trust those they don’t really know.

Make time for your team to build deeper connections. Help them better understand each other’s values, strengths, and even development areas.

Invest in coaching and team-building activities that strengthen trust, foster connection, and embrace the diversity that each team member brings.

6.  Feedback and Reflection Are Not in the Team Toolkit

Without regular feedback and reflection, issues go unresolved, opportunities are missed, and tension simmers.

Create ongoing space for team reflection—not just during reviews or development programs. Research shows that leaders who encourage reflection and participative discussion build psychological safety and improve team performance.

Regularly seek feedback and reflection in everyday leadership conversations—it demonstrates that growth is a shared priority.    Use questions like these to foster shared reflection and collective growth:

·      How could I better support you?

·      What have you learned from this?

·      What are the leadership team growth gaps?   How could we address them?

·      How have we progressed as a team over this period?

·      What is our biggest opportunity?   How does the team need to adapt to seize it?

7. Roles and Accountabilities Lack Clarity

One of the most common causes of tension in leadership teams is unclear roles and responsibilities.

When it’s unclear who is responsible for what—or how work should be done—confusion and friction follow. Don’t let it fester. Identify where clarity is missing and work with the team to clarify boundaries.

8. Reward Systems Focus on Individual Performance

If your reward systems only recognise individual achievements, you’ll reinforce individual behaviours.

To promote real team performance, build hybrid reward systems that balance personal performance with shared team success—so team members are motivated to win together, not just alone. 

The research shows that hybrid reward systems lead teams to higher performance than individual or shared reward systems.     

9. You Lack Systems That Promote Teamwork

Business systems tend to be built around roles and functions, not leadership teams, often resulting in little motivation to collaborate or think beyond personal results.

High-performing teams benefit from structures that support healthy team habits—building shared purpose and thinking beyond silos. Implement regular processes that require both the involvement and input of the full leadership team.  

Try regular team problem-solving sessions: Each member shares a key challenge; the rest offer perspectives, ideas, and support.   This does not need to be another meeting – it could be a shared digital workspace, with asynchronous contributions.

10. You Recruit for the Role, Not for the Team

Too often, recruitment focuses heavily on functional skills with little attention to how the person will contribute to the team dynamic.

If you want a high-performing leadership team, recruit for the team as much as the role. Look for what’s missing in the team’s skill set, ways of working, or diversity of thought. Don’t just replicate what you already have.

11. You’re Managing, Not Coaching

High-performing teams grow together. If you’re always controlling the direction and providing the answers, you’re limiting your team’s growth.

Use a coaching approach. Ask more insightful questions. Be curious. Create space for the team to think and adapt. Provide input only when it’s needed—not by default.

12. There’s No Time for Deep Thinking & Learning

If your team is stuck in back-to-back meetings, chasing short-term goals, and drowning in constant urgency, they won’t have the capacity to move to a high-performing level.

As a leader, it’s critical to create time and space for your team to think and learn more broadly— both individually and collectively.

Schedule regular time for team-wide big-picture reflection—away from day-to-day pressures.

13. You’re Not Promoting Fresh Thinking

If your team isn’t actively seeking new perspectives, they risk becoming trapped in internal bias and industry norms.  This means strategic thinking stays trapped within the boundaries of the status quo.

Encourage curiosity. Challenge the status quo. Invite external voices to expand thinking. Independent perspectives cut through groupthink and offer valuable, unbiased insights.

Final Thought

Much of a leadership team’s success depends on how the leader shapes the environment, sets expectations, and models the way.

Small, intentional shifts in leadership practice can unlock significant improvements in team trust, collaboration, and performance.

If you’d like support unlocking your leadership team’s full potential—we’re here to help. Learn more