Years ago, I was a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany. Many of us were newly assigned there. Some of us were brand-new leaders just promoted as noncommissioned officers (NCOs). We knew our jobs, and we knew how to lead. But we hadn’t really worked together yet.
I remember sitting with a group of young NCOs when Chief Warrant Officer 4 (CW4) Robert Rupe introduced us to four stages of group development:
Forming > Storming > Norming > Performing
At the time, it was Army leadership training. Years later, I learned that what he was teaching us is known as Tuckman’s Model of Group Development. Psychologist Bruce Tuckman first introduced the framework in 1965 to describe the predictable stages groups often move through as they develop: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. A fifth stage, Adjourning, was added later, but these original four have become a widely used framework for understanding how teams grow and mature.
What CW4 Rupe gave us wasn’t just a leadership theory, but language for understanding what was about to happen to us as a team.
As a pastor leading staff, volunteers, ministry teams, and other leaders, I’ve realized just how valuable that conversation was. Because one of the most important things a leader can understand is this:
Healthy teams don’t begin healthy. They become healthy.
A group of talented people does not automatically make a healthy team.
People have to learn each other. They have to build trust. They have to experience disagreement. They have to establish culture. They have to learn how to work together. And there’s usually a process.
Understanding that process can keep a leader from panicking when the team enters a difficult season and can help you lead people toward health instead of abandoning them in the middle of the process.
1. FORMING: "Where do I fit?”
Forming is the relational stage.
The group has just come together. Everyone is learning personalities, expectations, roles, leadership styles, and boundaries. People tend to be polite and somewhat guarded because trust hasn’t been established yet.
Underneath the surface, people are asking questions like:
- Who are these people?
- Can I trust them?
- What is expected of me?
- Where do I fit?
- Who’s leading?
We can see something similar when Jesus first calls His disciples.
Mark 3:14 says:
“And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach.”
Don’t miss the order.
Before Jesus sent them, He called them to be with Him.
Relationship preceded responsibility.
Jesus didn’t simply assemble twelve people, hand them job descriptions, and tell them to change the world.
They traveled together. They ate together. They watched Jesus minister. They learned His heart. And they learned one another.
We see something similar in Acts 2:42-47. The early church developed shared rhythms around teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, prayer, generosity, and worship. Those rhythms helped establish the identity of the community. That’s important during the forming stage.
Don’t rush chemistry.
Build clarity and connection.
People need to know:
- Who are we?
- Why are we here?
- What do we value?
- Where are we going?
- What do we expect from one another?
A mistake leaders make is trying to get productivity out of people before they’ve created clarity and connection among people.
Forming establishes belonging and it's purpose is CONNECTION. Forming gives people time to establish relationships, understand the mission, clarify expectations, and discover where they fit. Before people can function together, they need a sense of belonging. Forming turns a collection of individuals into the beginning of a team.
2. STORMING: “Can I trust you when we disagree?”
Then comes the fun part.
Storming is the conflict stage.
Eventually, the politeness wears off. Different personalities emerge. Expectations collide. Someone disagrees with a decision. Someone feels overlooked. Someone doesn’t like the way someone else communicates. Leadership gets challenged. Preferences become visible. And suddenly the leader is thinking:
“What happened to our amazing team?!”
Maybe nothing happened.
They just stopped being strangers.
That’s an important distinction.
Conflict doesn’t always mean something went wrong. Sometimes it means people have finally become comfortable enough for their real expectations, opinions, personalities, and frustrations to show.
Forming introduces us. Storming reveals us.
Scripture doesn’t hide this reality either.
The disciples argued about who was the greatest in Luke 22:24.
Paul confronted Peter over his behavior in Galatians 2:11-14.
Paul and Barnabas had such a significant disagreement concerning John Mark that they eventually separated in Acts 15:36-40.
And in Acts 6, the early church experienced conflict over the distribution of food to widows.
Acts 6:1 says:
“Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose…”
Notice: Growth produced friction.
But the apostles didn’t ignore the conflict. They addressed it. They clarified responsibilities. They empowered leaders. They changed the organizational structure.
And Acts 6:7 tells us what happened afterward:
“The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly…”
The conflict wasn’t necessarily the enemy of growth.
Properly handled conflict became a catalyst for greater health.
That’s why leaders shouldn’t automatically fear storming. Storming reveals things that forming can’t.
- Character.
- Humility.
- Communication.
- Insecurity.
- Maturity.
- Trust.
You don’t fully know the health of a relationship when everyone is getting what they want. You discover it when somebody hears “no.” You discover it when someone disagrees. You discover it when expectations aren’t met. You discover it when two strong personalities see something differently. The goal of leadership isn’t to create a team where nobody ever disagrees.
The goal is to create a team that knows how to disagree without destroying one another.
Storming tests belonging, and its purpose is to build trust. Storming brings differences into the open so the team can learn how to handle them. Different expectations, personalities, communication styles, and opinions are no longer theoretical; they have to be navigated. Storming teaches us whether we can disagree and still trust one another.
3. NORMING: “This is how we do life together.”
If a team learns to navigate storming well, something begins to happen. The group starts developing healthy patterns.
Norming is the alignment stage.
People understand one another better. They begin to know:
- How we communicate.
- How we disagree.
- How decisions are made.
- How responsibilities work.
- What behavior is acceptable.
- What our culture actually values.
In other words: Culture becomes predictable.
Acts 6 gives us a great picture of this. The church experienced a problem, but they didn’t simply put out the fire and move on. They developed structure. Responsibilities became clearer. Qualified people were empowered. The apostles clarified their own priorities. The problem helped them discover a better way of operating.
That’s what healthy organizations do. They turn lessons into culture.
Ephesians 4:2-3 tells believers to walk:
“With all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
I love Paul’s language there. He doesn’t tell them to create unity. He tells them to preserve it.
Healthy teams eventually learn what threatens their unity and what protects it. So don’t repeatedly solve the same problem individually.
When storming teaches you something important, build what you learned into how your team operates. That is how values become culture.
Maybe your team begins saying things like:
- We don’t talk about people; we talk to people.
- We disagree privately and support publicly.
- We assume the best before believing the worst.
- We don’t compete with other ministries. We’re one church.
- We own problems instead of simply pointing them out.
Eventually, those aren’t just statements hanging on a wall. They’re how the team actually behaves. They’ve become normal. That’s why it’s called norming.
Norming establishes alignment. The lessons learned through conflict begin becoming shared expectations and healthy patterns. The team establishes, “This is who we are, and this is how we operate.”
Norming turns lessons into culture.
4. PERFORMING: “We know who we are. Now let’s accomplish the mission.”
Eventually, something beautiful happens.
The team has established enough trust, clarity, and relational health that it doesn’t have to spend tremendous amounts of energy figuring itself out anymore.
Performing is the productivity and multiplication stage.
People know their roles. They trust leadership. They trust one another. Conflict can happen without destroying relationships. People take ownership instead of constantly waiting for instructions. The team can finally devote more of its energy to the mission.
Ephesians 4 gives us a beautiful biblical picture of this. Paul says leaders are given:
“…for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” Ephesians 4:11-12
Then in verse 16:
“…the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part…”
That’s performing. Every part working properly.
Not the pastor doing everything. Not one superstar carrying the ministry. Not people competing for importance. Everyone contributing according to their God-given function.
The leader’s goal isn’t: “They need me.”
It’s: “I’ve equipped them.”
Performing releases people into purpose. The purpose is MISSION. The team has enough connection, trust, and alignment that its energy can shift from constantly managing itself to accomplishing what it was created to do. People know their roles, trust one another, take ownership, and contribute their strengths.
Performing turns healthy culture into fruitful mission.
The Stage Most Leaders Want to Skip
Here’s where this becomes especially important.
Most leaders want this:
FORMING → PERFORMING
We launch the team.
Everybody is excited.
We cast vision.
We have matching shirts.
Everyone loves everybody.
We take a group picture.
“This is the greatest team I’ve ever led. Let’s change the world!”
Give it six weeks...
Eventually somebody gets offended.
Somebody disagrees.
Somebody doesn’t follow through.
Somebody questions a decision.
Somebody’s personality begins rubbing somebody else the wrong way.
And the leader starts wondering what went wrong.
You cannot skip storming to get to performing. Storming doesn’t necessarily mean the team is falling apart. Sometimes it means the team is finally becoming real. Biblically, unity isn’t the absence of disagreement.
Unity is the spiritual maturity to remain committed to one another and the mission in the middle of disagreement.
That changes the way you lead conflict.
Instead of immediately asking: “How do I make this problem disappear?”
You begin asking: “What does our team need to learn here?”
Today’s conflict may reveal tomorrow’s culture.
And Then It Starts All Over Again
There’s one more piece leaders need to understand. This process isn’t something you complete once. Teams can reset.
Bring a significant new person onto the team, and you may start forming again. Change leadership, and the team may start forming and storming again. Introduce a major new vision. Launch a campus. Restructure the organization. Experience rapid growth. Merge two departments. Lose an influential leader.
Suddenly, a team that had been performing can find itself storming. That doesn’t automatically mean something is broken.
The group changed, so the group dynamics changed.
This is where mature leadership becomes incredibly important.
The question every healthy leader asks: “What stage is my team in right now and what does my team need from me in this stage?”
Each stage requires something different from the leader.
- Forming needs clarity and connection.
- Storming needs courage and healthy conflict.
- Norming needs consistency and culture.
- Performing needs empowerment and multiplication.
I first heard these principles as a young Staff Sergeant in the US Army. I couldn’t have known then how many times I would come back to that conversation not only in the Army, but in ministry.
CW4 Robert Rupe was teaching us how groups work. Years later, I’ve realized he was also teaching us something about leadership:
Healthy teams don’t begin healthy. They become healthy.
And good leaders don’t panic during the process. They learn how to lead people through it.
