Every healthcare administrator, leader, and manager I’ve ever met has wanted excellent employees. However, the work I’ve done over the past 40 years suggests that excellent employee teams are what distinguish organizations that achieve next-level excellence. You can spend years and years trying to crack open the anatomy of an excellent team. I know this because that’s exactly what I’ve done. After spending the bulk of my career focusing on this hugely important topic, I can tell you that employee excellence comes down to one thing. Excellent employees are essential but not enough. When it comes to the employees who work in healthcare organizations, the whole (the team) truly is greater than the sum of the parts.
We can point very easily to example after example of what makes work teams fall into mediocrity or fail. Backbiting, dishonesty, pettiness, jealousy, competition, bullying, cliques — we could go on all day long. In fact, I wrote my book The Problem Employee on precisely this subject. I doubt there’s a healthcare leader who hasn’t seen at least some of these disheartening employee behaviors. But what makes teams excellent? Through my work over a long career focused on healthcare administration, leadership, and management, I have come to understand that there are indeed characteristics that excellent healthcare teams have in common and that other teams lack.
What is an Excellent Healthcare Team?
A survey of literature about excellent healthcare teams won’t yield any big surprises. The literature suggests that excellent teams are made up of employees who work collaboratively to achieve shared goals. They do this with trust, respect, and open communication, creating a culture where each team member values collaboration over competition. Team members actively support one another and share ownership of the team’s successes, challenges, and failures. The excellent team also anticipates and adapts to change with a positive mindset and resolves conflicts constructively. Within the excellent team, everyone feels heard, appreciated, and motivated, and team members celebrate achievements together, whether big or small. Because of this, the excellent team’s productivity and morale skyrocketed. Does this sound about right and familiar to you? It does to me, too. As I said, most of the literature doesn’t yield any big surprises. Good employees want to be part of excellent teams and will rise to the level of excellence around them. Most healthcare leaders want to lead excellent teams, too. No surprises there, either.
But there’s something that the literature doesn’t talk much about. I have found, too, that excellent teams are carefully crafted from the get-go to combine employees whose strengths balance one another. For example, one member of the team may be a technology wiz, another really good at keeping things organized, another at seeing the big picture, another at coming up with creative solutions, and another at facilitating conflict resolution. This balance of knowledge, skills, and abilities within the team is extremely important, and it begins at recruitment. New team members must be sought actively for the particular strengths they bring that the team lacks or needs more of. Strategic recruitment, therefore, is an essential component of team excellence, but far too often it is overlooked. If you don’t recruit the right members for your team, or if you inherited a team whose strengths are poorly balanced, you are going to face a steep uphill battle to get that team to the next level of excellence.
I think we already knew this, too. The balancing of team strengths may not be widely discussed in the literature, but it is without question a universal theme we see again and again in fictional works about high-performing teams. For example, films such as Oceans 11, The Avengers, The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen, Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, School of Rock, and The Incredibles depict teams where the individual talents and strengths of its members are what make them excellent. In fact, it’s what makes them function at all. Even The Three Musketeers possessed balanced strengths that made the small team of three what it was. For Athos, it was his noble character, bravery, and loyalty. Porthos’s strength was his strength of character, body, and will. And Aramis’s strengths were his discretion, charm, and elegance. Each of the musketeers was essential to the trio’s success because of those individual strengths. Without them, the three musketeers would have been three well-dressed guys who were very handy with rapiers, nothing more.
The universality of this team balance theme is not limited to works of fiction. Every player on an excellent healthcare team has something unique that they contribute that is an essential ingredient of the team’s success. For this reason, conducting a team strengths audit is a good place to begin your efforts to lead your healthcare team to the next level.
Conducting a Team Strengths Audit
You may be tempted to begin a team strengths audit by jumping directly into an assessment of each member of your current team. However, the place to begin your audit is not with your current team, but with your ideal team. Imagine that you are going to build an ideal healthcare team from scratch. What would that team look like? What skills, abilities, knowledge, and experience would your ideal team have? Make a list of those characteristics. Then, note beside each one whether every member of the team ideally should have the characteristic, most have it, a few have it, or just one have it. For example, if your ideal team should have the ability to maintain its professionalism no matter the challenge, that’s a characteristic you would expect from every team member. However, if you want your team to be able to speak in Spanish to your Spanish-speaking patients, that may be a characteristic you need from most, a few, or even just one employee, depending on the number of Spanish-speaking patients you serve.
Once you have your ideal team description, you can conduct your audit of your current team’s strengths. Assess each current employee to see how many of your ideal characteristics they have, and the level of that characteristic. Then, note any characteristics of your ideal team that your current team lacks or does not have in sufficient quality or quantity. For example, if you find that half of your employees have the level of technical skills you need, is that sufficient? Or if your ideal team develops future leaders from among its ranks, but only two team members show leadership potential, how many more do you need?
Identify the specific ways that your current team balance can be improved. Then, see if there is opportunity for you to offer more training, mentorship, or other employee development efforts to improve that balance with the employees you already have. For example, perhaps more employees can increase their technology skills by taking more courses or completing new certifications. Or perhaps cross training can enable more employees to take over another team member’s role when needed. Or more future leaders can be encouraged and fostered through a mentorship program. Also note if your current team brings any characteristics that were not on your ideal team list but that have proved to be an asset. For example, a funny employee may not have been on your ideal team list but you may find that having one on your team has helped increase team morale. Or an employee who knows American Sign Language (ASL) may not have been on your list, but you may have found that having one was very helpful with your patients who are deaf and hearing impaired. Should you add humor and ASL fluency to your ideal team list? Perhaps. Or perhaps you do need at least one team member who helps bolster morale, with humor or otherwise, and another who can communicate with your patients who are deaf and hearing impaired.
Once you’ve assessed your current team and provided additional training to improve it, note the characteristics you seek in new team members. Assess every employee vacating a role on your team to determine which strengths the team will lose without them. Recruit with an eye toward hiring new employees who will bring the characteristics you have identified that you need to round out your team.
The Ten Characteristics of Excellent Healthcare Teams
Ask 100 people what characteristics employees need to have to create an excellent team and you’ll probably come up with 100 different answers, maybe more. Most people would agree about some of those characteristics. However, there would be many points of disagreement about which other characteristics are necessary or even desirable. I have put together my top 10 list of team characteristics based on my extensive study of the subject over many years. You may think of others. However, these 10 will create a work environment where team members can work together efficiently to give your patients the best healthcare experience possible while creating higher productivity, more innovation, fewer mistakes, fewer problems, and overall team success.
Effective communication. Open and transparent communication prevents, reduces, or eliminates oversights, misunderstandings, hurt feelings, poor morale, duplicate work, and mistakes, and helps to foster a climate of trust among the team members. Chris Stowell(1) suggests that the ability to communicate skillfully is “the most significant factor in any team” and cites seven reasons communication is so important. Communicating well, Stowell says, establishes team communication goals, eliminates the need to reinvent the wheel, uses time well, keeps things clear, provides a way to for team members to show respect to one another, encourages collaboration, and enhances team satisfaction. Stowell adds, “Strong group communication will create understanding and that understanding will create powerful relationships within a team.” Research suggests that three or more people working together on a project are much more effective than a single person spending all of their time doing the same thing.(2-4) However, good communication is essential. Alan Bass(5) warns, “Without communication, the three-plus team members can be as useless as if the project went untouched.”
Trust. A trusting environment encourages team members to express their thoughts and concerns without fear of judgment. When individuals work as part of a team, they must do so in an atmosphere of trust and be encouraged to express themselves openly. A trusting environment encourages team members to ask questions, bring up concerns, disagree, come up with crazy new ideas, and be more creative in solving problems. In fact, trust is one of the strongest predictors of whether a work team will perform well. It is the invisible infrastructure that allows employees to coordinate, share information, and take risks together. Dana Brownlee(6) says, “Teams can’t reach the highest levels of productivity and effectiveness without high levels of trust — they just can’t.” Brownlee cites several reasons trust is such an important and necessary ingredient for broader team success and enhanced results. Trust builds psychological safety, encourages questioning, creates goodwill, encourages innovation and rapid decision making, and enhances morale. Brownlee says, “Who wants to work around people they can’t trust or, worse yet, people who don’t trust them! At best that type of low trust environment might eke out quality results in the short term, but longer term, it’s a recipe for dysfunction and failure.”
Emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the much-touted ability to recognize, understand, manage, and use emotions — your own and other people’s — in effective and constructive ways. Jessica Schrader(7) says, “Study after study has shown that teams are more creative and productive when they can achieve high levels of participation, cooperation, and collaboration among members,” all behaviors that stem from the team’s emotional intelligence. Schrader suggests that three conditions are essential for emotionally intelligent teams: trust among members; a sense of group identity (pride in the group and a sense of group efficacy); and the members’ belief that they are more effective working together than apart. One of the most interesting things Schrader says is “Teamwork is an unnatural act and takes practice and discipline.” That’s a bold concept. If teamwork indeed is unnatural, a high level of emotional intelligence can help team members overcome their natural urge to work independently. So, what does an emotionally intelligent team look like? Not what many people think. It’s not that team members must be exceptionally wise and perceptive. Rather, Vanessa Urch Duskrat and Steven B. Wolff(8) conclude, “Group emotional intelligence is about small acts that make a big difference. It is not about in-depth discussion of ideas; it is about asking a quiet member for his thoughts. It is not about harmony, lack of tension, and all members liking each other; it is about acknowledging when harmony is false and tension is unexpressed, and treating others with respect.”
Individual strengths. Ideally, each member of your team contributes to its success. Recognizing and valuing each team member’s unique qualities is a good first step toward building teams with a strong sense of trust and collaboration. Overall behavioral insights and a personality style assessment can help you position the individuals within your team so you can capitalize on their strengths to achieve high-performing results. For example, a good assessment can keep you from placing your least detail-oriented team member on a project that requires a great deal of detail work. However, you must not be the only one who knows about the individual strengths that make up your team. Jim Asplund(9) says, “Gallup discovered that [teammates’] strengths awareness had twice the influence on a team’s performance than the composition of a team’s strengths. In other words, it’s not which strengths a team has but, rather, how well teammates know each other’s strengths.” Strengths-based training and interventions highlight strength differences and turn them into assets. Gallup found that teams that are meta-aware of their individual strengths are highly engaged. Members can name each other’s strengths and know how those talents lead to achieving results. They have a common language and know how their team members react to change. And they know why certain people are in certain roles and learn to rely on each other’s strengths to succeed. Asplund says, “In short, strengths-based training turns a group of strangers into an inclusive, aligned, collaborative team. Using diverse individual strengths together is a powerful formula for high performance.”
Interdependence. Independence is often held up as the gold standard when assessing employees. Sonji Phillips(10) says, “We celebrate self-starters, praise people who ‘don’t need hand-holding,’ and reward those who can run with it.’” However, there’s a limit to how far independence alone can take a team because, Phillips says, “You don’t win as a team by working in silos. You win by working together.” Members of high-performing teams are dependent on one another because true teamwork is built on interdependence, not just cooperation and divvying up tasks. Interdependence is what turns a group of individuals into a coordinated, high-performance unit. When team members depend on each other, work tasks flow between them like a relay. Each step depends on the quality and timing of the previous one. This flow reduces needless duplication, rework, bottlenecks, and decision paralysis. Dianne Crampton(11) says, “Interdependence is crucial for the success of any team or organizational culture and there are identifiable and measurable behaviors that foster a strong sense of interdependence in your workplace.” If your culture is weak in interdependence, Crampton suggests, start with a focus on gratitude and recognition. When employees feel recognized and appreciated for their gifts and contributions, they are happier and more productive in their roles. Crampton says, “An added benefit is that you organization will experience higher employee retention, too.” What’s very important, though, is that interdependence must not come at the price of losing individual identity or accountability. Phillips explains, “It’s not about dependency, where someone can’t function alone. And it’s not about pure independence, where everyone works in isolation. Interdependence is the middle ground: ‘I can do my part, but we are stronger — and more effective — together.’”
Ownership. Ownership plays a vital role in sustainable high-performing teams. Vartika Kashyap(12) says, “When employees take ownership in the workplace, they don’t just do their job — they care about the results, find solutions, and ensure success.” Organizations can enjoy many benefits when their work teams take ownership of their work. Among these are increased productivity, enhanced problem-solving, trust, credibility, more and better innovation, and team collaboration. When employees know they can rely on one another, teamwork becomes natural and seamless, leading to better outcomes. Kashyap says, “When the team takes ownership of their work, everyone wins. Projects run smoothly, collaboration improves, and teams achieve their goals. There are fewer missed deadlines, stronger trust among team members, and a workplace where people feel valued and motivated.” Ownership typically inspires teams to go above and beyond. It’s a state of mind in which team members feel personally invested in the outcomes they produce with their teammates. Gustavo Razzatti(13) says, “Not only do they have the motivation, agency, and willingness to step up — they will also do whatever it takes to achieve the goals.”
Continuous growth. Healthcare teams need to grow, because the world around them keeps changing. What we need to do evolves, new tools become available, new patients need to have their need met, and new challenges threaten public health and resources. If the team doesn’t grow, it risks falling behind. Therefore, the only way teams can keep up with the challenges ahead is to grow continuously. Learning, in particular, is extremely important to staying ahead of the curve. James Henderson(14) says, “To maintain high performance, businesses must implement an environment of continuous learning. Encourage employees to develop professionally through training programs, workshops, or mentorship. This equips them with new skills and ensures they stay adaptable to industry changes.” Investing in learning enhances individual growth and strengthens team performance, because employees will stay motivated to grow and present fresh perspectives and ideas. Henderson says, “A commitment to ongoing and long-term development helps an organization remain competitive, driving long-term success.” Peak Revenue Learning(15) suggests several reasons that continuous employee growth is crucial to the improvement of employees and organizations. Continuous growth increases the organization’s efficiency and profitability, helps employees develop their careers, enhances team knowledge, increases morale, aids in creating an internal leadership pipeline, prepares employees for industry changes, and encourages a culture of cooperation. In addition, Peak Revenue Learning says, “Employee growth programs help companies to discover new talent, improve productivity, and reduce employee turnover.”
Group decision-making. Making good and timely decisions is a cornerstone of team success. However, many teams struggle to strike the right balance between consensus and yielding to authority. Team Dynamics(16) says, “High-performing teams have the freedom and flexibility to make decisions in real-time rather than waiting for management approval.” Team members who work daily in specific areas of the organization usually are the best equipped to make good efficient decisions, Team Dynamics says, adding that allowing them that freedom “will help the team pivot faster and perform better.” Of course, consensus-driven approaches foster collaboration and buy-in but risk delays and groupthink. Authoritative styles usually are much faster but can alienate team members. Team Dynamics recommends a three-step approach to fostering better team decision making. First, recognize your team’s decision-making strengths and weaknesses. Next, balance consensus and authority. Team Dynamics says, “Here’s the truth: neither consensus nor authority is the perfect answer on its own. The best teams use both styles when the situation demands it.” Finally, remain flexible. Don’t ignore your team’s natural strengths and enforce authoritative decision making when it’s not warranted. Instead, know when to lean into team strengths and when to experiment with other approaches that may at first feel uncomfortable. Team Dynamics says, “Over time, this adaptability becomes second nature, and your team’s results will speak for themselves.”
Conflict resolution. Healthy conflict is an essential aspect of healthy teams. In fact, productivity and growth will be stunted if the team does not have diversity of thought or if team members don’t feel safe to disagree with one another. The status quo will be maintained at the expense of real progress and higher performance. Being able to question things in a constructive manner will make team outcomes much stronger. Conflict resolution has the added benefit of building and strengthening team relationships. North Central College(17) warns, “Personal and professional relationships can often suffer from unresolved arguments.” Ongoing conflicts also can stand in the way of completing goals. North Central College explains, “It can be difficult to focus or work together on a project when underlying conflict is present. Resolving these issues at the root can lead to greater efficiency and goal achievement.” For healthy conflict resolution, team members must be comfortable being open with one another and feel free to communicate how they feel. They must share the belief that it’s okay to offer opinions, suggest ideas, ask questions, raise concerns, speak up, and admit mistakes without fear of negative repercussions. Healthy conflict resolution is built on psychological safety — a group phenomenon that allows or even encourages interpersonal risk-taking and candor within a work team.
Dynamic teaming. Dynamic teaming is a way of organizing people so that teams form, adjust, and dissolve as needed rather than stay fixed. It’s a common approach to team formation in fast-moving workplaces and for complex projects where the skills required can change quickly. Amy Edmonson(18) says, “Innovation thrives when people from different disciplines and backgrounds come together to develop new possibilities that none of them could have envisioned alone. Making this happen requires that diverse individuals work exceedingly well together.” The most effective teams find ways to roll up their sleeves and work together rather than have employees bring their expertise, ideas, and biases to a project and toss them in the mix. Edmonson says, “They find ways to genuinely integrate their different perspectives so as to create brand-new possibilities. This is teaming.” For example, in a typical hospital emergency department, Edmonson says, patient outcomes depend on seamless coordination and superb communication among diverse clinicians and staff who may not know each other’s names at the outset of the encounter. That’s teaming. High-quality, dynamic teaming blends getting to know people quickly — their knowledge, skills, and goals — with listening to other points of view, coordinating actions, and making shared decisions. Edmonson says, “Effective teaming happens when everyone remains highly aware of others’ needs, roles, and perspectives. This entails learning to relate to people who are different and learning to integrate different perspectives into new, shared possibilities, plans, and actions.”
Indicators of Excellence in Healthcare Teams
The best teams demonstrate their strength through their behavior, results, and emotional climate. You can look for indicators in all three areas:
Behavioral indicators of excellence. Strong teams communicate openly, collaborate smoothly, and bring purpose to meetings. They give each other feedback without hesitation and support one another without being asked. Louis Carter(19) says, “When you see people step in, step up, and step forward together, teamwork is strong.”
Performance indicators of excellence. Good teams deliver. They solve problems quickly, show higher productivity, and demonstrate stronger innovation. Carter says, “Their turnover is lower because people want to stay.” Accountability is clear, and the team’s results reflect it.
Emotional indicators of excellence. Team members on an excellent team feel included, respected, and engaged. Most importantly, they enjoy being part of the team. Carter says, “Emotional health shows up in tone, energy, and the way people treat one another — even on tough days.”
The sidebar that accompanies this article provides a 20-question quiz you can use to assess the excellence of your healthcare team. Take the quiz now to assess your current team and quarterly from now on to keep track of whether and how your team evolves. You can have a next-level healthcare team if you have the right employees and if you lead them to excellence.
Sidebar: How Excellent Is Your Healthcare Team? Let’s Find Out
The behavior-focused quiz that follows will help you assess your team’s excellence. Consider your team as it is today and rate each item in this quiz 1–5 (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).
Our team meetings stay focused.
Team members proactively share work updates without waiting to be asked.
Our team addresses new problems promptly.
Our team avoids second-guessing once decisions are made.
Team members openly acknowledge their mistakes.
Team tasks are distributed in a way that feels reasonable.
Our team welcomes different viewpoints.
Team members look for what needs to be done and do what is needed without being prompted.
Team members treat one another with courtesy, even during stressful periods.
Our team consistently meets deadlines.
Our team delivers high-quality work.
Team members exchange positive corrective feedback as needed.
Our team responds supportively when a team member makes a mistake.
Team members can challenge each other’s ideas without negative consequences.
Everyone on the team participates in team discussions, not just the loudest or most senior members.
Our team adjusts to new priorities, initiatives, or directions without losing momentum.
Team members can try new things, experiment, or take calculated risks without fear of disapproval.
Our overall team vibe is supportive and optimistic, even when our team is busy.
Team members can raise problems or concerns without fear.
Team members freely share information, resources, and lessons learned rather than protecting them.
Add your scores for the 20 items:
90-100: Excellent team. Your team is highly functional with strong behavioral norms.
80-89: Strong reliable team. Your team has a good foundation. A few behaviors need to be fine-tuned.
70-79: Mixed team performance. Strengths definitely exist, but some team behaviors may be undermining results.
69 and below: Serious team challenges. It’s likely that your team is experiencing conflict, inconsistency, or low morale. There’s a lot of opportunity for improvement.
References
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Henderson J. Is your team thriving or just surviving? 5 long-term strategies to build and sustain high-performing teams. Entrepreneur blog., November 14, 2024. www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/5-long-term-strategies-to-build-and-sustain-high-performing/482184 . Accessed December 10, 2025.
Peak Revenue Learning. Continuous employee growth: benefits and how to encourage it. Peak Revenue Growth blog, February 17, 2025. https://peakrevenuelearning.com/2025/02/17/continuous-employee-growth-benefits-and-how-to-encourage-it/ . Accessed April 9, 2026.
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