Leadership and People Management: Foundations to Practice · Building High-Performing Teams
Team Development Over Time
Teams evolve through recognizable stages as they form and mature, and understanding which stage a team is currently in changes what kind of leadership intervention is actually appropriate at that specific point.
A widely used model, developed by psychologist Bruce Tuckman in 1965, describes teams progressing through forming (polite, uncertain orientation), storming (genuine conflict as members assert working styles), norming (establishing shared expectations), and performing (operating efficiently with minimal oversight), with a fifth stage, adjourning, added later to cover a team's eventual disbandment.
Key Takeaways
- Tuckman's 1965 model describes teams progressing through forming, storming, norming, and performing, with adjourning added later to cover disbandment.
- Storming, genuine early conflict as members assert working styles, is a normal, necessary stage, not a sign of team failure.
- A performing team can regress back toward storming when membership changes significantly, since prior norms were built around the previous composition.
- Leadership intervention should match the team's current stage; heavy structure helps a storming team but can feel like unnecessary interference to a performing one.