It’s common to see that some teams do very well and achieve amazing results, while others, even though they have talented people, can’t meet even their most basic goals. The difference often lies not in skill or resources, but in team dynamics and internal health. Patrick Lencioni’s powerful framework, famously known as Patrick Lencioni five dysfunctions, helps leaders recognize the hidden breakdowns preventing progress. His team dysfunction model has become a major part of modern management theory, especially when it comes to leadership and team performance.
The Five Behaviors® model, inspired by Patrick Lencioni’s groundbreaking framework, reveals the hidden issues that silently undermine teamwork. These core breakdowns lack of trust, fear of healthy conflict, unclear commitment, weak accountability, and inattention to collective results explain why even promising teams lose alignment and momentum.
For any leader or manager focused on building cohesive teams, cultivating trust and accountability in teams is essential. Through an engaging business fable, the Lencioni model explained provides a simple yet actionable path to transform struggling groups into aligned, results-driven teams.
Ultimately, overcoming team dysfunction is the key to unlocking a team’s true potential—turning a scattered group of individuals into a cohesive, high-performing powerhouse committed to shared success.
1 . What Are the Five Dysfunctions of a Team?
“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” provides a clear hierarchy of behavioural roadblocks that can derail even the most talented groups. Lencioni’s team dysfunction model, often visualised as a pyramid, illustrates how the presence of one dysfunction at the base inevitably leads to those higher up. Understanding these five causes of team dysfunction is essential for overcoming team dysfunction and developing a strong, functional team environment.
The dysfunctions, from the foundation upward, are:
- Absence of Trust: This is the foundational dysfunction. It occurs when team members are unwilling to be vulnerable within the group. Without a safe environment to admit mistakes, weaknesses, or concerns, genuine connection and communication are impossible.
- Fear of Conflict: When trust is absent, teams are unable to participate in unfiltered, passionate debate about key issues. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and artificial harmony. Productive ideological conflict is essential for making the best decisions.
- Lack of Commitment: Without dispute, it is difficult for team members to buy in and commit to decisions, even if they feign agreement during meetings. Ambiguity and lack of clarity on decisions lead to indecision and second-guessing.
- Avoidance of Accountability: Commitment and buy-in are necessary for team members to hold one another accountable for their actions and performance. Without clear plans and standards, peers are hesitant to call out one another’s unproductive behaviours or low standards, which ultimately harms the entire team.
- Inattention to Results: The ultimate dysfunction is when team members place their individual needs—ego, career development, or personal recognition—ahead of the collective goals of the team. A focus on politics and personal status supplants the desire for collective success.
Mastering Lencioni’s team dysfunction model and addressing these issues is the only path to building cohesive team environments centred on trust and accountability in teams and a shared purpose.
2. Addressing the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: Strategies for Overcoming Team Dysfunction
Understanding the theoretical model is just the first step. To achieve genuine teamwork effectiveness, leaders must actively work to address each dysfunction, transforming the common causes of team dysfunction into drivers for positive change.
2.1 Absence of Trust: Building Vulnerability-Based Trust in Teams
The fundamental dysfunction, the Absence of Trust, essentially immobilises collaboration. When team members cannot admit weaknesses or ask for help without fear of retribution, they put up protective barriers. This lack of vulnerability keeps important information from being shared, which makes it hard to make good decisions and keeps relationships from growing. Building vulnerability-based trust and accountability in teams requires creating a psychologically safe environment where leaders model transparency first. Only by feeling safe can individuals focus on collective goals rather than self-preservation.
2.2 Fear of Conflict: Fostering Healthy Debate and Open Communication
Fear of Conflict stems directly from a lack of trust. Teams that are afraid of conflict work in a fake state of harmony, keeping down ideas that are controversial but important. This silence stifles innovation and prevents a robust examination of options. When teams encourage healthy debate and open communication, they can “agree to disagree” and work through problems in a good way. This useful ideological conflict makes sure that the best solutions are found and tried out, rather than just going with the flow.
2.3 Lack of Commitment: Driving Clarity, Buy-In, and Team Commitment and Performance
Without healthy conflict, teams rarely achieve true buy-in. When people make decisions without asking everyone what they think, it can lead to confusion, passive aggression, and not following through. Members of a team struggle to remain dedicated and give their best work when they are unsure of the team’s direction or are not given the opportunity to express their opinions. Achieving clarity and commitment means that everyone, regardless of their initial opinion, must be on the same page by the end of a discussion, fully committed to executing the final decision.
2.4 Avoidance of Accountability: Cultivating Leadership Accountability and Peer Responsibility
Lack of commitment makes accountability impossible. When plans are vague or the agreement is shallow, peers feel uncomfortable calling out behaviours or substandard work. This dysfunction is solved by establishing clear metrics and standards, and encouraging leadership accountability and peer-to-peer responsibility. It is not the manager’s sole job to hold people accountable; effective teams ensure that team members address counterproductive actions directly with each other as a matter of respect for the collective goal.
2.5 Inattention to Results: Prioritising Team Goals for Enhanced Team Results and Teamwork Effectiveness
The ultimate dysfunction is the focus on individual status, ego, or career over the collective team results and teamwork effectiveness. When personal agendas outweigh the shared mission, the team fractures. Real teams work together to figure out what it means to win and make that their top priority. This focus ensures that the team remains a results-oriented unit, aligned and dedicated to achieving substantial, measurable success.
3. How Leaders Can Overcome Team Dysfunctions
Leaders are very important for helping a team get over the five dysfunctions of a team. Implementing strategies for overcoming team dysfunctions begins with the leader modelling the desired behaviour first. This requires courage, consistency, and commitment to the team’s long-term health. The essence of the team leadership model provided by Lencioni is that the leader must tackle the toughest issues head-on, starting with vulnerability.
To address the absence of trust, leaders must demonstrate personal vulnerability, admit their own fallibilities, and create a safe environment for others to do the same. This process can go faster with trust-building activities and sharing personal stories. For the fear of conflict, the leader should actively mine for conflict during meetings, ensuring all perspectives are heard and encouraging robust, healthy debate rather than artificial harmony.
Once conflict is productive, commitment becomes achievable. Leaders must ensure clarity around decisions, using clear communication to gain full buy-in. To make people responsible, leaders should make the team’s goals and standards clear and create a culture of peer pressure and shared responsibility, rather than being the only one who enforces them. Last but not least, it’s important to keep the end goal in mind when building strong teams. Leaders must ensure the team’s collective results are celebrated and individual ego is sidelined, creating a clear, unwavering focus on the shared mission. Leaders can turn a group that is having trouble into a high-performing, close-knit team by using these strategies ahead of time.
4. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Pyramid Model Explained
A core component of Patrick Lencioni’s five dysfunctions of a team concept is its visual representation as a hierarchical pyramid. This structure isn’t random; it shows how each dysfunction at the base makes a foundation that either supports or weakens the layer above it. The reliability of the entire system depends on the strength of the lowest layer.
At the base of the team dysfunction model is Absence of Trust, the bedrock of all relationships and functional teamwork. Without this vulnerability-based trust, Fear of Conflict inevitably arises, as team members are unwilling to engage in the necessary, passionate debates essential for high performance. This fear, in turn, leads to a Lack of Commitment, where decisions are made without universal buy-in or clarity. The lack of clear, agreed-upon plans makes Avoidance of Accountability natural, as no one is positioned to call out a peer’s unproductive behaviour. The pyramid culminates at the top with Inattention to Results, the ultimate dysfunction, where the team’s focus drifts from collective success to individual status and ego.
Patrick Lencioni’s five dysfunctions of a team, explained through the pyramid, provide a powerful diagnostic tool. A weakness at any level compromises the entire team’s effectiveness. Addressing the top dysfunction without first fixing the foundation of trust is futile. Leaders must systematically work from the bottom up to achieve true leadership and team performance.
5. Why This Model Matters in Today’s Workplace
Patrick Lencioni’s five dysfunctions of a team structure are more relevant than ever in the modern workplace. With the rise of mixed and remote teams, the challenges of building cohesive team environments are amplified. Lencioni’s principles are an important guide for making sure that teams get results and work well together because they require teams to make an effort to build trust and accountability when they aren’t in the same room.
This model is a cornerstone of effective leadership development initiatives and L&D programs globally. Organisations aiming for sustainable team performance improvement use this framework to diagnose deep-seated cultural issues rather than just treating surface-level symptoms.
The practical application of the Lencioni model, explained through specific tools, enhances its impact. For instance, many organisations, including partners like BYLD, integrate Lencioni’s principles with behavioural assessments like DiSC-based programs to provide leaders with the language and data needed to understand team dynamics better. This integrated approach gives useful information on how to fix team problems. This illustrates how, despite changes in the workplace, the basic human dynamics that facilitate effective teamwork persist.
Read More – 7 Tips for an Effective Manager to Build a Cohesive Team
Conclusion: Unlocking the Potential of Your Team
It takes more than good fortune or smart hiring to build high-performing teams. Real transformation begins by addressing the root causes of team dysfunction. The Five Behaviors® model, based on Patrick Lencioni’s proven framework, helps turn a group of individuals into a cohesive, aligned, and results-driven team.
By intentionally building Trust, encouraging productive Conflict, strengthening Commitment, reinforcing Accountability, and maintaining a strong focus on Results, organisations can significantly elevate team performance. Mastering these Five Behaviors is essential for long-term success and a healthy organisational culture.
