Upcoming Sessions
Lead through others to drive stronger organisational performance
Organisational success depends increasingly on the performance of your team rather than your contributions as an individual. Leading a team brings the potential to achieve greater results together, and any good team leader will tell you the same: you can't do it alone.
However, managing team dynamics can also bring increased complexity to your role. Different priorities, competing perspectives, entrenched assumptions, personality clashes and cultural differences can make it difficult to build alignment and maintain momentum.
Whether you lead local teams, business units, global virtual teams, or cross-functional task forces, INSEAD’s Leading Teams programme will help you better understand yourself, including your strengths, weaknesses and blind spots. By stretching beyond your habitual leadership approaches, you can unlock stronger team performance.
Key learning concepts in the programme curriculum
Be equipped with a raft of new evidence-based skills, techniques, and tactics to manage your team and empower them for ongoing organisational success. Over five days, Leading Teams will help you gain a deeper understanding of:
- How do you gather and integrate information more effectively?
- How do you overcome biases and develop as a better team leader?
- How do you implement strategic decisions effectively?
- How do you negotiate win-win and win-lose situations successfully?
In this programme, you will explore how leaders motivate and influence others, lead effectively across virtual and diverse teams, improve decision-making and execution, build alignment through negotiation and persuasion, and manage conflict constructively.
Our Participant Profile
INSEAD’s Leading Teams programme designed for managers and leaders seeking to strengthen their capabilities across a broad range of leadership topics or refresh their leadership skills in today's fast-moving business environment.
Skills you will develop
- Negotiation
- Self-awareness
- Communication
- Developing People
- Leading Teams
- Persuasion
How You Benefit
Understand how effective team leadership contributes to organisational success and people performance
Strengthen your ability to motivate, influence and develop others across a range of team and organisational contexts
Lead more effectively across virtual, diverse and cross-functional teams
Apply evidence-based approaches to key leadership challenges in decision-making, negotiation, conflict management and team execution
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What is an example of leading a team?
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Leading a team can take many forms, from managing a small project team to overseeing a business unit, leading a global virtual team, or coordinating a cross-functional task force.
Regardless of size or structure, effective team leadership involves aligning people around shared goals, leveraging diverse expertise, managing interpersonal dynamics, and enabling the team to perform collectively. INSEAD's Leading Teams programme explores the leadership challenges common across these team settings and provides practical tools to lead them more effectively.
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What is the role of a team leader?
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A team leader is responsible for creating the conditions that enable a group of people to perform effectively together. This includes setting direction, building alignment, facilitating decision-making, managing conflict, motivating team members, and ensuring that diverse perspectives contribute to better outcomes.
As organisations become more collaborative and matrixed, team leaders must increasingly influence performance through relationships, persuasion, and coordination rather than formal authority alone.
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What are the five qualities of an effective team leader?
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Leaders improve team performance by creating alignment around priorities, encouraging open communication, leveraging diverse expertise, making effective decisions, and addressing conflict constructively.
High-performing teams are rarely the result of individual effort alone. They are built through effective leadership practices that enable collaboration, accountability and consistent execution. INSEAD's Leading Teams programme examines these dynamics and how leaders can strengthen them in practice.
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How do leaders improve team performance?
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While leadership styles vary, effective team leaders commonly demonstrate five core qualities:
- Self-awareness to understand their strengths, weaknesses and leadership blind spots.
- Communication to build clarity, alignment and trust.
- Influence to motivate others and gain commitment to shared goals.
- Decision-making to navigate complexity and move teams forward.
- Adaptability to lead effectively across diverse, virtual and changing environments.
These capabilities help leaders manage team dynamics, overcome challenges and sustain performance over time.
This programme qualifies for the INSEAD Certificate in Global Management.
The certificate is a formal recognition in areas of global management and leadership. Please refer to the certification requirements here.
Programme Directors
Professor of Organisational Behaviour
Professor of Organisational Behaviour
IN Focus
INSEAD Leading Teams | Hear from our Participants
INSEAD Leading Teams | Hear from Marjolein Duijf
Tugce Ikis
Business Unit Manager at NAOS (Bioderma - Institut Esthederm - Etat Pur)
The programme creates extremely fruitful discussions and combines strategic thinking with very human leadership realities.
Michael Stokoe
Director of Urban Freight, Transport for NSW
It’s been a long time since I’ve undertaken some formal education and stepping away from the day-to-day challenges of family and work life to focus on learning was refreshing.
Farida Mohammad Rafi
Chief Human Resource Officer, Emirates Islamic Bank PJSC
Be open to challenging your assumptions and consider the long-term impact on your leadership and career trajectory. It could be a highly rewarding investment for you.
Dates and Fees
Investing in a Lifelong Learning Journey at INSEAD
Preferential Rates and Financing
Up to 30% Off
For the INSEAD alumni communityFinancial Aid
For French companies based in FranceRelated Programmes
Learning to Lead
Leading for Results
