Any team member can lead

Amrita Sen Mukherjee, positive psychology practitioner, European Mentoring and Coaching Council senior practitioner coach, and portfolio GP, says, “Creating a strong sense of team at work is essential for nurturing connection, trust, and shared purpose. Strong relationships are the foundation of a successful team, so making regular opportunities for the team to connect can make a big difference.

“Shared experiences strengthen bonds and create lasting connections. These moments don’t need to be extravagant—even small interactions, such as regular informal coffee chats, contribute to a deeper sense of being a unit. Simple things like asking a colleague how they are—and genuinely listening to their response—can also make a huge impact.

“Leadership is a behaviour that any team member can exhibit. Modelling trust, respect, and transparency fosters an environment where everyone feels safe to contribute and everyone has collective ownership of their goals. Encourage the team to step up, share ideas, and take initiative.

“A sense of team thrives when there’s a shared understanding of purpose. Take time to articulate the team’s mission, values, and collective goals. Acknowledging team and individual accomplishments can also foster a positive culture. Highlighting strengths and achievements reinforces a sense of belonging, motivates the team, and builds mutual respect.

“When teams feel connected, supported, and united under a common purpose, they’re not only more effective but also more fulfilled in their work.”

Rituals can foster team working

Heidi Edmundson, emergency medicine consultant, says, “Feeling like part of a team has been shown to improve staff engagement and patient safety. The first step in creating a sense of team is believing that it’s important and not something that happens by accident.

“Next identify key moments and small acts that help to bring the team together. These will include the start and end of the shift. It’s easy to dismiss little gestures but the key to making them work is by committing to doing them regularly, no matter what else is going on. By doing this you create a ritual. Kursat Ozenc, a lecturer at Stanford University, delivers a course based on the idea that you can design your culture based on rituals.1 What you choose to make into a ritual shows what is important to you.

“One example of this is the morning handover—I spend a few moments asking the day team to say their names and roles and to answer a question such as ‘What is your favourite possession?’ Questions like this may appear simple but the answers can reveal a lot. They allow the team the opportunity to have a human connection with each other at the start of the shift. I hold the time and space to do this, no matter how busy the department, as it is important to me. I enjoy this moment, and the answers can range from funny, to surprising, and in some cases moving.

“As I always do it, it definitely has a ritualistic quality to it. Doing the same thing repeatedly provides a sense of security and stability in the increasingly turbulent environment in which we work. It also acts as a psychological moment to bring everyone together and announces that the shift has begun.”

Teams are at the heart of healthcare

Dinesh Bhugra, professor emeritus mental health and cultural diversity, Kings College London, says, “The patient is at the heart of everything we do and every medical discipline needs and thrives on team work. Teams are crucial because members must work together to achieve a common agreed goal. In medicine, that is about direct and indirect patient care.

“Teams can be based on the need to achieve a single function or on continuing care. They can be task based, where the remit may be clear and the focus is on achieving one or more particular aims. Clinical teams may be led by doctors or others and team members may not know each other or leaders, and their leadership style may not be entirely clear. Team leaders may be open minded in that they can cope with being challenged and may have an open door policy, whereas others may be dictatorial and controlling.

“For a team to function effectively, the leader must know the strengths and weaknesses of each member. If the leader is choosing their team, they must identify people who complement their skills and ‘cover’ their weaknesses.

“In any team the leader should be able to deliver a task by either dealing with it, delegating it, or ditching it (in a rational way). The delegation of tasks is not because the leader does not like the person to whom the task is delegated but because they are the most appropriate, competent, and suitably skilled person to deliver it.

“It is inevitable that there may be tensions in the team either because of professional rivalry or personal animosity. Mutual respect for each other’s skills and recognition of team members’ strengths (and weaknesses) can, however, bring the team together and bring about success. Recognition, respect, remuneration, and reward are what contribute to a successfully functioning team.”

Share your needs with others

Alexandra Petrache, behavioural scientist, says, “To create a sense of team we need understanding, and we need to acknowledge intrinsic (internal) and extrinsic (external) needs and pressures. One doctor may not like their decisions audited or might think they don’t need to consult a team—here, it is helpful to try to foster a pleasant team environment where doctors can share opinions without being judged and where asking for help is not seen as unpreparedness, but as belonging to the team.

“Active communication is also needed—when we’re tired or busy we might forget that others cannot read our minds and that we have to express our needs for them to be met. I’ve spoken to people in various medical specialties and they often mention wanting more help from their multidisciplinary team, but they don’t always ask for it and sometimes think that others ‘should just do it, it’s their job.’ Sharing needs and wants—and asking for, and listening to those of others—can be a good start to creating a sense of team.

“A medical team also needs a common goal—for example, improving a patient’s health. Here the subgoals might differ, as different specialties may interpret guidelines differently and some doctors might struggle to incorporate others’ advice. In this scenario, it’s important to drop the ego slightly and remember that the final goal is the same—it can be helpful to start team meetings with a reminder of that goal and ask oneself and others to think about the goal holistically.”