Most leaders know their team is underperforming. What they don’t know is why.
I suffered from low back pain for years. Maybe it’s 35+ years of competitive golf or just sitting at a desk too much, but the pain was real. So I did what most men do: I complained about it.
Well, that’s not exactly true. I complained and was proactive in trying to solve it. I did stretches, rested it, went to the chiropractor, went to the physical therapist, and even got X-rays. A lot of time, energy, effort, and money were spent trying to get the pain to go away. I got some temporary relief, but nothing lasting.
What I finally figured out was that I was throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping something would hit the solution, without knowing the source of the pain. When I finally started over, figured out the source, and treated it consistently (knock on wood, it’s a lot better).
The same is true for an underperforming team.
Most CEOs, HR executives, and front-line managers I talk to know a team or even department is underperforming. What they don’t know is why. And here is the problem: if you misdiagnose the root cause, every fix you try can delay you from the outcome you want or make things worse. Both are recipes for disaster as a leader when you are compensated to deliver results quickly.
Today I’m going to walk you through the five causes of underperforming teams, how to know which one is hurting yours, and exactly what to do about it.
What Is a Team?
Before we get into the causes, let’s align on a common definition.
It sounds basic, but most groups of people who underperform are really just a collection of individuals working closely together. They are not a team. A team is three or more people working together to achieve a common goal. So if a team is underperforming, they are coming up short on their shared purpose. Not a vibe. Not a generic feeling. A measurable outcome the group is bought into accomplishing.
If that shared purpose doesn’t exist yet, stop here. Establish it before you do anything else.
The 5 Causes of Underperforming Teams
Cause 1: Leadership
The top of the underperformance food chain is, without question, leadership.
As Jocko Willink said, “There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” The problem is that most managers and executives skip right past this cause because it’s the hardest one to admit. It requires them to look in the mirror and acknowledge they are a significant part of the problem.
Leadership is also cause number one because every other cause on this list starts here. A team does not underperform in a vacuum. The leaders on the team are always responsible. Said differently, if a team is underperforming and the leader doesn’t admit they are responsible, they are a manager, not a leader.
If a team is underperforming and the leader doesn’t admit they are responsible, they are a manager and not a leader.
How to diagnose it:
Ask yourself three questions. Do the people on my team know exactly what winning looks like? Are team members getting better because of me? When things go wrong, is my first instinct to look at them or at myself? If you hesitated on any of those, leadership is likely your root cause.
The fix:
Only 15% of managers receive any formal leadership training. The initial fix is to invest in a leadership development program. But the most important fix is a mindset shift from manager to leader. A leader sets the standard of performance through their actions, not their words.
Cause 2: Culture
You have heard it: “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” But most people don’t really know what culture is. I defined it in Accelerate Leadership and Building the Best as “the shared values and beliefs that guide thinking and behavior.” It’s not empty values on a wall. It’s how people act.
How to diagnose it:
Here is where it gets interesting. The first cause of underperformance is directly connected to the second one because leaders are responsible for the culture. So if you want to know if you have a culture problem, look at how people behave when the boss isn’t around. Does the standard of behavior hold up or do team members cut corners? If the answer makes you uncomfortable or you don’t think you would like what you see, culture is your problem.
The fix:
To fix the culture, you have to get hyper-specific about the standards of behavior that fuel performance. Not 50 of them, just three to five. Less is more, so people can remember them and live them out. Once you do that, recognize them when you see them, and address it immediately when you don’t. Culture is never fixed with a poster. It’s fixed with repetition.
Cause 3: Talent
No leader can outperform the talent on their team. Some teams underperform simply because they don’t have the talent to compete at the level they’re being asked to. That’s a hard truth, but ignoring it is worse.
John Maxwell said it well: “It’s a nightmare to have a big dream and a bad team.” Maxwell is correct. You will only be as good as the talent that you recruit, refine, and retain.
“You will only be as good as the talent that you recruit, refine, and retain.” — John Eades
How to diagnose it:
A lack of talent on the team is tough to overcome. So first, look up to the leader then across to the team members. If you think you could find someone more talented for a role in less than 6 to 8 weeks, it’s time to upgrade the talent in that position.
The fix:
If you have a talent problem, you must get more clarity on what you are looking for in team members. The three traits that we have found in our research that are most important are caring, coachability, and commitment. If you identify people who care deeply about their craft, are coachable in order to find ways to improve, and show a commitment to the mission they are on, it’s a winning formula.
Cause 4: Systems
Most teams that underperform don’t have a talent problem. They have a systems problem. As James Clear wrote in Atomic Habits, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” Goals without systems are just wishes.
A system is a set of principles, procedures, or an organized framework for how work gets executed. Without one, talented people waste effort, good culture doesn’t scale, and accountability has nothing to attach to.
How to diagnose it:
Ask your team three questions. How do we decide what to work on? How do we know if we’re on track? How do we handle it when something goes wrong? If you get inconsistent answers across your team, you don’t have a system. You have good people with good intentions.
The fix:
If you have a systems problem, start with how your team executes on a weekly basis. The three elements we have found in high-performing teams are a shared goal or objective, clear priorities for focus, and a method for tracking progress.
Cause 5: Accountability
A team that doesn’t embrace accountability is destined for underperformance.
Accountability is the obligation to accept responsibility for your actions and their results and to do so transparently. On underperforming teams, accountability is either completely absent or it’s only used under extreme circumstances.
How to diagnose it:
Two questions. When someone on your team drops the ball, is there a clear and consistent response or does it get absorbed and forgotten? When someone exceeds the standard, do they get praise and recognition?
The fix:
If you have an accountability problem, the fix starts with the leader getting clear about the standards and expectations of performance first. Once those are in place, then and only then can accountability become the center of the culture.
The Diagnosis Is the Starting Point
Most underperforming teams don’t lack effort. They lack clarity on where to focus in order to fix what is broken.
The five causes above are rarely isolated. Culture flows from leadership. Accountability collapses without systems. Talent gets wasted when culture is weak. But every single one of them traces back to cause number one: leadership.
The question is not whether your team is underperforming. The question is whether you are willing to look honestly at why. Pick the one cause that resonates most with where your team is right now. Then make one decision this week to address it.
The Prioritization Audit: The Prioritization Audit is available as a downloadable PDF toolkit you can run with your team today. Brain Dump worksheet, Maximize vs. Optimize sort table, Scoring Grid, and The Two Questions, all in one place. Get it Here
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What’s Your Leadership Level: Take the 3 min quiz to learn what your current level of leadership is. Take it for Free Here
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About the Author: John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft and The Sales Infrastructure. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices. John is also the author of Building the Best and the Optimistic Outlook