From Conflict to Collaboration: A Leader's Guide to Team Development

lilyhowe2
May 27
4 min read

Team development session navigating conflict and communication to improve collaboration.

Every leader has experienced it.

A team that looked great on paper starts to feel harder to manage in practice. Whilst the capability is there, deadlines get missed because of unaddressed tension. Meetings that should be productive become stunted or, worse, argumentative. Capable individuals, but an ineffective team.

Before you conclude you've hired the wrong people, just pause. What you might be witnessing is one of the most natural, well-documented phases of team development. And with the right tools, it's entirely possible to navigate.

Tuckman's Model: A Map for What Your Team Is Going Through

In 1965, psychologist Bruce Tuckman introduced a model that's stood the test of time in organisational development. He identified four stages that almost every team moves through:

Forming: The team comes together. Everyone is on their best behaviour. There's politeness, optimism, and a degree of uncertainty as people find their feet.

Storming: Reality sets in. Differences in working style, communication preference, and personality begin to surface. This is where conflict lives and where many teams get stuck.

Norming: The team starts to find its rhythm. Roles become clearer, trust begins to build, and collaboration improves.

Performing: The team operates with cohesion, confidence, and a shared sense of purpose. Output improves. Energy lifts.

The issue here is that too many teams stall in the Storming phase because they lack a shared language to understand and navigate their differences.

Why Storming Happens, And Why It's Not Anyone's Fault

Storming happens off of the back of Forming when there are any changes to an existing team such as new joiners, leavers, promotions etc.

Each person on your team shows up with a distinct behavioural style which is shaped by their personality, their experiences, and how they naturally prefer to communicate, make decisions, and handle challenge. Without awareness of these differences, even well-intentioned interactions can land badly.

We've all seen this in our teams either as leaders or team members: The direct communicator who thinks they're being efficient is perceived as abrasive. The detail-focused team member who wants to get things right is seen as slow. The relationship-builder who wants everyone to feel included is considered indecisive. Nobody is wrong, but also no one understands what's getting in their way.

This is where DISC comes in.

DISC: A Shared Language That Changes Everything

DISC is a behavioural profiling framework built around four core styles:

Dominance (D) — Direct, results-driven, decisive. Motivated by challenge and control.
Influence (I) — Enthusiastic, collaborative, persuasive. Motivated by connection and recognition.
Steadiness (S) — Calm, loyal, consistent. Motivated by harmony and stability.
Compliance (C) — Analytical, precise, principled. Motivated by accuracy and quality.

Most of us carry a blend of these styles, usually with one or two naturally dominant. None is better or worse as each brings value to a team, but without awareness, the differences between styles become problematic.

DISC not only helps people understand themselves, it helps them understand each other. And that shift in perspective is where the real change happens for teams to step into high performance.

When a Dominance-style manager understands that their Steadiness-style team member needs time to process before responding, they stop reading silence as disengagement. When the Influence-style colleague understands that their Compliance-style peer isn't being obstructive (they just need the data before they can commit) trust replaces frustration.

The team starts to move. From Storming to Norming. From Norming to Performing.

How I Work With Teams Using DISC

As an accredited DISC Practitioner and CIPD Level 5 HR Consultant, I work with organisations to use DISC as a practical tool for real behavioural change, going beyond the fact that it's simply an interesting exercise.

My recommended approach typically combines a half-day team training session where everyone receives their own DISC profile and explores it together in a structured, facilitated environment to then follow with 1:1 coaching to embed the learning and support lasting change.

The team session creates the shared language and then the coaching makes it stick long-term.

The result? A team that flows better and collaborates more effectively with improved performance.

DISC Beyond the Team: Individual Coaching and Wellbeing

DISC is equally powerful on an individual level, and it's something I weave into my 1:1 coaching work too.

Understanding your own behavioural style can be genuinely revelatory, particularly when it comes to wellbeing. Many of the people I work with are high-achievers who have spent years operating outside of their natural style, pushing themselves to communicate, lead, or perform in ways that don't come naturally, and that sustained effort is quietly exhausting.

When you understand your DISC profile, you start to see not just how you work, but why certain environments, relationships or demands drain you more than others. That awareness is key to facilitating meaningful change. In my coaching, we use DISC as a foundation for deeper self-knowledge: exploring what energises you, what depletes you, and how to build ways of working that feel more sustainable and more authentically you.

For individuals navigating burnout, people-pleasing, or simply a loss of direction, this kind of structured self-reflection can be a powerful catalyst for change.