Dale Carnegie and Associates released a new study that provides business leaders with valuable insights into identifying significant contributors connected to high-performing teams.

The Dale Carnegie study, titled “A Leadership Imperative: Creating a Culture of High-Performing Teams,” highlights seven essential factors organizations can focus on to propel their teams to the next level. Researchers surveyed 2,650 global leaders across 15 countries to better understand key drivers behind high-performing teams and what sets them apart in the workplace.

“Today’s organizations are managing an increasingly diverse and mobilized workforce,” says Joe Hart, president and CEO of Dale Carnegie and Associates. “This creates unique challenges, especially when it comes to how teams work together effectively. Insufficient, underperforming, or unseen leadership often leaves team members dissatisfied, causing them to feel unsupported and unappreciated.

“In an evolving corporate landscape, leaders have a critical responsibility to create a shared culture that drives employee satisfaction and positive emotional and behavioral change,” Hart says. “By creating a shared culture, leaders honor both individual and community achievement and achieve higher performance standards for teams and the organization.”

Even when teams are developed with quality talent and complementary skillsets, performance can still suffer, especially without a culture where that talent works closely and effectively together. As high-performing teams offer a competitive advantage and less than one-third of teams are reported to function at this level, it’s clear that organizations need to better understand how to implement best practices that create high performers across a hybrid workforce. With this in mind, leaders of the most talented teams must ask: “What key steps do we need to focus on to propel performance and teamwork to the next level?”

In response to this question, some of the following key findings from the research study demonstrate that high-performing teams are not a product of chance:

  • 85% of high-performing teams reported having well-defined goals.
  • 81% of high-performing teams interact daily, making effective communication a valuable contributor to team outcomes.
  • 74% of high-performing teams had access to training and development compared to 49% of all others.

The study shows that building high-performing teams requires ongoing effort from leaders, managers, and team members. Leaders must champion adaptability, engagement, and a culture that values individual and collective achievement in an ever-evolving business landscape. Effective team leadership also involves transparent communication, clear goals, and cross-functional collaboration, creating adaptability and psychological safety. Within a teamwork culture, individuals can commit to accountability and transparency, founded on shared values, continuous learning, and meaningful communication.

To read an in-depth analysis of the research that includes the seven key influences to creating a culture that supports the development of high-performing teams, download the full report at A Leadership Imperative: Creating a Culture of High-Performing Teams | Dale Carnegie Training.