Team Leadership Programme

Building and Leading High-Performance Teams

Create the conditions for trust, accountability, collaboration, productive conflict, inclusion and sustained team performance.

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Course overview

Design the conditions in which teams can perform, learn and adapt together.

Building and Leading High-Performance Teams develops the practical leadership system required to turn a group of capable individuals into a coordinated, accountable and resilient team.

The course examines team purpose, role clarity, trust, psychological safety, decision rights, collaboration, conflict, performance routines and learning. Participants distinguish healthy challenge from destructive conflict and supportive leadership from avoidance of accountability.

Through an evolving team case and a live team-system review, participants design operating agreements, meeting rhythms, decision practices and interventions that improve performance without creating unnecessary control.

Learning outcomes

What participants will be able to do.

  • Diagnose team performance as a system of purpose, structure, relationships and routines.
  • Clarify team outcomes, priorities, roles, interfaces and decision rights.
  • Build trust through reliability, openness, fairness and competent follow-through.
  • Create psychological safety while retaining standards and accountability.
  • Use productive conflict to improve decisions and avoid artificial consensus.
  • Design team agreements for communication, collaboration and escalation.
  • Lead effective meetings, reviews and coordination rhythms.
  • Address underperformance, disengagement and unhelpful team behaviour.
  • Adapt leadership for cross-functional, virtual and diverse teams.
  • Prepare a practical team-performance improvement plan.

Who should attend

Designed for leaders and professionals who need practical, context-aware capability.

  • Team leaders and people managers.
  • Project, programme and workstream leaders.
  • Functional managers leading cross-functional delivery.
  • Leaders of virtual, hybrid or geographically distributed teams.
  • Managers responsible for rebuilding or accelerating team performance.

Prerequisites

Prepare for active application.

  • Participants should have experience of working in or leading a team.
  • A current team challenge or performance opportunity will strengthen application.
  • No prior team-development qualification is required.
  • Corporate cohorts may use a live team or leadership-team context.

Course structure

5 integrated modules from leadership insight to workplace application.

The programme connects concepts, behaviour, practical tools, decisions and transfer through one coherent learning journey.

1

Module 1

Teams as performance systems

  • Groups versus real teams.
  • Purpose, outcomes, interdependence and value.
  • Team lifecycle and changing leadership needs.
  • Performance conditions and common failure patterns.
  • Team-system diagnostic.
2

Module 2

Trust and psychological safety

  • Reliability, competence, fairness and openness.
  • Speaking up, admitting uncertainty and learning.
  • Safety with standards and accountability.
  • Leader behaviour and power dynamics.
  • Repairing damaged trust.
3

Module 3

Roles, decisions and accountability

  • Role clarity and interface management.
  • Decision rights and escalation paths.
  • Goals, measures and shared ownership.
  • Delegation and distributed leadership.
  • Addressing ambiguity and accountability gaps.
4

Module 4

Collaboration, conflict and inclusion

  • Constructive challenge and productive conflict.
  • Managing differences, tension and avoidance.
  • Inclusive participation and contribution.
  • Cross-functional collaboration and hand-offs.
  • Facilitation and difficult team conversations.
5

Module 5

Team operating rhythm and improvement

  • Meetings, reviews and coordination routines.
  • Feedback, retrospectives and learning loops.
  • Virtual and hybrid team practices.
  • Performance intervention choices.
  • Team improvement roadmap.

Learning experience

Learn through application, challenge, feedback and reflection.

Diagnose

Team-system assessment

Evaluate purpose, trust, roles, decisions, collaboration and performance routines.

Align

Team charter workshop

Define outcomes, roles, decision rights, communication and behavioural expectations.

Challenge

Productive-conflict simulation

Practise disagreement, inquiry and decision-making without personal escalation.

Coordinate

Meeting and rhythm redesign

Improve how the team plans, reviews, learns and escalates.

Intervene

Team-performance case

Select proportionate actions for trust, accountability or collaboration problems.

Transfer

Team improvement roadmap

Prioritise practical changes for a current team over the next 90 days.

Course completion

Demonstrate participation, application and professional judgement.

  • Participate in team diagnostics, simulations and design workshops.
  • Complete the team charter and operating-rhythm activities.
  • Contribute to peer review and facilitated feedback.
  • Prepare a practical team-performance improvement roadmap.

Participant outputs

Typical course outputs include:

  • Team-system diagnostic.
  • Purpose and outcome statement.
  • Team charter and working agreements.
  • Decision-rights and escalation map.
  • Meeting and review rhythm.
  • Ninety-day team improvement roadmap.

Delivery options

Choose the format that fits your people and operating environment.

Instructor-led

Live Classroom

Face-to-face delivery with facilitated discussion, leadership cases, simulations, reflection and immediate feedback.

Instructor-led

Live Virtual Classroom

Interactive online delivery using collaborative workspaces, breakout activities, coached practice and guided application.

Flexible

Blended Learning

A structured combination of preparation, live sessions, workplace application, reflection, coaching and follow-up.

Organisation-specific

Corporate and In-Company

Tailored delivery using organisational terminology, leadership frameworks, cases and current priorities where appropriate.

Frequently asked questions

Course information and participation.

Does the course assume all teams should work in the same way?

No. Participants design fit-for-purpose practices according to the team’s work, interdependence, risk, maturity and operating context.

How does the course balance psychological safety and accountability?

It treats both as necessary. People need to speak honestly, ask for help and learn while remaining responsible for commitments and standards.

Is the programme suitable for project teams?

Yes. It is highly relevant to project, programme, functional, operational and leadership teams.

Can an intact team attend together?

Yes. Corporate delivery can use facilitated team diagnostics and produce an agreed operating model and improvement plan.

Does the course cover virtual teams?

Yes. Virtual and hybrid coordination, communication, inclusion and trust are included throughout the programme.

Take the next step

Create the team conditions that turn capability into sustained performance.

Discuss a public programme, an intact-team intervention or a tailored leadership pathway aligned with your team-performance priorities.

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INDENTRA may adapt sequencing, exercises and examples to suit the delivery format and participant profile while preserving the stated learning outcomes. Any external examination, accreditation or third-party certification arrangement applies only when explicitly confirmed for the specific offering.