Surfacing Creative Leadership: Exploring Fosters Team Play

We’re diving deep into the dimensions of the Leadership Circle Profile®—one at a time—to surface insights, get curious, and explore how each dimension helps leaders move from Reactive to Creative leadership. In this post, we’re unpacking Fosters Team Play—the dimension that measures a leader’s ability to create the conditions where collaboration thrives.

Behind every great team is a leader who knows how to make work feel less like a grind and more like a shared adventure. When leaders cultivate an environment where trust runs deep and people feel free to bring their full selves, something remarkable happens: collaboration becomes energizing, not exhausting. Work starts to feel more like play—creative, engaging, even joyful.

But make no mistake. Fostering team play isn’t about keeping things light or avoiding hard moments. It’s about creating the conditions where openness and honesty can thrive—where conflict is met with curiosity rather than fear, and where success is measured not by individual achievement but by the strength of the whole team.

The future of leadership depends on leaders practicing team play in this way. The complexity of the world has outgrown command-and-control. No single person can possibly hold all the answers. What we need instead are leaders who know how to unlock the collective intelligence of the group—leaders who are willing to admit “I don’t know” and invite others into the discovery.

The truth is, the best teams don’t just work together. They play together. If we are to solve the problems that the world faces, we cannot do so with only grim determination. Big problems are solved by those who play—and play big.

What Do We Mean by Fosters Team Play?

When we talk about Fosters Team Play in the Leadership Circle Profile, we’re talking about more than just “getting along” with others. This dimension measures a leader’s ability to create the conditions for high-performance teamwork—inside their own teams, across functions, and even within groups where they are not the formal leader.

Leaders who score high here are catalysts. They know how to build a climate where collaboration, motivation, and trust flourish. They share leadership, invite diverse voices, and celebrate big swings and team wins in equal measure.

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The word play matters, too. Anyone can foster teamwork. But team play signals joy. Exuberance. Creativity. Openness. Teams that truly play together tap into energy and ideas that can’t be forced or controlled. And in that play, they find not only better outcomes, but deeper meaning in the work itself.

The good vibes don’t stop there. Leaders who excel in the Fosters Team Play dimension are simply more effective. They have a knack for cultivating teams in which the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts.

The data backs this up. With a .89 correlation to leadership effectiveness—tied with the Purposeful and Visionary dimension—Fosters Team Play is one of the strongest predictors we have of a leader’s impact. The numbers make it clear: great leadership and great teamwork rise—and fall—together.

Why This Dimension Matters

As the complexity of work grows and it becomes necessary to lead increasingly into the unknown, a leader’s competence, alone, isn’t enough. High performance comes from connection, and leaders who foster team play know that trust is the bedrock of collaboration. When people and teams feel safe, seen, and supported, they do their best work.

In a recent conversation with Bob Anderson, Leadership Circle CEO and Co-Founder Bill Adams talked about the importance of leaders meeting this moment. “As complexity goes up, what helps us match that complexity—both in mindset, as well as the way we work together in the environment in which we work—is [Fosters Team Play],” he said. “That’s the difference maker.”