When a Team Grows Through Pressure – Rather Than Being Diminished by It: Part 2 of 3 in our Leadership Practices That Drive Engagement and Performance

In a recent newsletter, we introduced findings from a particular piece of research that identifies three engaging leadership practices. Together, these practices create remarkable outcomes: at the individual level, people become more optimistic, more resilient, and more confident in their own abilities; at the team level, trust deepens, communication improves, and people feel more involved in the decisions that affect their work. In Part 1, we looked at confidence and resilience. In this newsletter: strengthening your team members by how goals are set and managed.

What we know from research: This research on engaging leadership found that when leaders strengthen their team members by setting specific high-performance expectations, delegating responsibility rather than just tasks in line with those goals, giving people the freedom to decide how they’ll execute, and providing regular performance feedback, four specific outcomes follow: people develop greater confidence in their abilities, a more optimistic view of what’s ahead, stronger resilience when things get hard, and the flexibility to adapt when circumstances shift.

My POV: The intention to positively stretch is usually there. What gets in the way is that leaders can add more work and mistake volume for stretch. Or they hesitate to delegate real ownership because it feels faster and safer to control how the work gets done when pace is key and the stakes are high. The leaders who strengthen most effectively stay invested in people’s success without directing their every step.

As a Leader, what can you do?

• Establish high-performance expectations through setting challenging goals. Most people operate well within the boundaries of what they’re already capable of. A goal that stretches them into new territory creates a mastery experience, and it’s that experience of achieving something hard that builds lasting confidence, resilience and optimism. Ask yourself about each person: is this goal challenging them, or just keeping them busy? And what does this person need to be capable of six months from now that they aren’t yet?
• Delegate responsibility, not just tasks, and give people the freedom to decide how they’ll execute. Before your next delegation conversation, ask yourself: am I handing over the task, or the ownership of the outcome? The temptation to stay in control is real and understandable, especially when the stakes are high. But control and oversight are not the same thing. Ask yourself: where are the moments I need visibility, and where do I need to trust them to work it through?
• Provide regular performance feedback that builds capability, not just accountability. The research identifies feedback as one of the key practices leaders use to strengthen their teams. Under pressure, feedback often gets reduced to what went wrong or whether targets were hit. But when feedback happens regularly enough for people to act on it, it becomes a development tool rather than a verdict. Prioritise time for even brief conversations: “What are you noticing about your own development here? Here’s what I’m observing. What would it look like for you to take this further?”

What difference will it make? When you lead this way, the people around you develop a different relationship with challenges. They stop waiting to feel ready and start building confidence through the work itself. For you, that means a team that grows through pressure rather than being diminished by it: people bring capability to the hardest moments, not just the comfortable ones.

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