Stages of Team Development

Each stage of team development asks something different of the leader

Tuckman's stages describe both the task side of a team and its relationships. The leader's job changes as the team moves through them.

Tuckman built the model from a review of group research

Tuckman's original article, Developmental sequence in small groups, reviewed published studies of groups, many of them therapy and training groups rather than workplace teams. Twelve years later, he and Jensen revisited the model and added adjourning.

The memorable rhyme of the names helped the model spread far beyond psychology into management training, where it is now one of the most familiar frameworks for team leaders.

Example: a merged team that seemed to be going backwards

Imagine two regional sales teams merged under one head after a restructure. The first month is cordial. By month three, meetings are tense and two senior members openly disagree about territories. The head fears the merger has failed. Using the model, she sees a team in storming and treats it as necessary work: she facilitates a session to agree decision rights and makes healthy conflict in teams an explicit norm. Tension drops because it now has somewhere to go.

Teams do not move through the stages in a straight line

The most common misreading is treating the stages as a one-way ladder. Teams loop back to storming when a member leaves, a new leader arrives or the strategy changes, which in fast-growing Gulf organisations can happen often.

The model also describes rather than explains. It tells you that storming is normal but not how to get through it, which is where trust, clear agreements and good facilitation come in. The guide on how to build trust in a team covers that practical side.