A study conducted by the i4cp (Institute for Corporate Productivity) Rob Cross, Edward A. Madden (Professor, Global Business at Babson College) found that top employers are 5.5 times more likely to promote individual, team, and leader collaboration in the organization.
Teamwork undeniably fosters creativity and enhances overall organizational productivity. However, amid these benefits lie unspoken challenges of teamwork that can lead to a frustrating collaborative experience. Many organizations resort to employee engagement software to address these teamwork-related issues effectively.
This article aims to shed light on common questions such as “What challenges do you typically encounter in teamwork within your organization? How do you approach overcoming them?” Delve into valuable insights to navigate and tackle the challenges of teamwork for a more harmonious and productive collaborative environment.
5 Challenges of Teamwork
There are multiple challenges of working in a team. As a leader, one has to be available for their team members and must understand their concerns to ensure that they stay productive and engaged. The following are some of the teamwork challenges and how one can overcome them.
5 Challenges of Teamwork
1. Role Uncertainty
Role uncertainty is one of the most common challenges of group work. There are a lot of differences between working as an individual employee and working as a part of a team. When you work with a team, your responsibilities are shared with other team members.
This culture of shared responsibilities might be a little hard to get used to if you have never worked with a team before. Working with many people can create confusion about your role in the team, resulting in multiple people taking up the same responsibility or leaving out some vital tasks. Asking the manager of the team clearly about your role in the team could help avoid these situations.
2. Lack Of Trust
When you work as an individual, you are used to making decisions and completing tasks individually. But when you work with a team, you have to trust your teammates and let them make a few decisions for the team.
Sometimes, team members make mistakes and it could be hard for you to trust them with any other decision. But as a team, it is important to trust your teammates and function. Building trust goes a long way in resolving the challenges of group work.
3. Unclear Goals
Some employees perform better when they function as a team, and some perform better than individual contributors. One reason for this could be setting the right goals. You can easily set the right goals for yourself as an individual contributor, but when you are a part of the team, you have to consider your teammates before setting goals.
One of the most common reasons for conflicts in teams is the ambiguity of goals. If you are not on the same page with your other teammates about your goals, it affects the productivity of the entire team, so communicate with the team/ manager and be clear about your goals.
4. Disengagement
Disengagement is one of the most common challenges of group work faced by everyone in the workplace. Teams tend to get disengaged when there’s a lack of proper direction or vision. Team members fail to understand their role in the bigger picture, which leads to lack of motivation.
Disengagement in teams is often a result of lack of clarity on team goals and how they contribute to the organization.
Some employees contribute more to a team than the rest of the team. The reason is not always that they feel responsible for the team, the share of their contribution depends on their individual talent and efficiency. But sometimes, these talent differences cause conflicts between team members.
Some employees of the team could be slower and less efficient than the rest. This could decrease the overall productivity of the team which could be frustrating for the high-performers of the team causing conflicts within the team. To avoid this, the goals should be set based on their capability and skills.
6. Systemic & Structural Challenges
6.1 Information Silos & Poor Knowledge Sharing
Problem description: Even in teams with good trust and clarity of role, information can get hoarded or trapped in silos — either because individuals are protective, or because there’s no shared system to document and share knowledge. This leads to duplication of work, misalignment, and frustration.
Impact: Redundant efforts, rework, wasted time, and reduced innovation.
Solution: Use a centralized knowledge management system (wiki, shared docs), enforce transparency (make docs and progress visible), and set protocols for what should be shared and when. Encourage open collaboration by default.
6.2 Collaboration Overload / Burnout
Problem description: Ironically, too much collaboration can become a burden. When team members are constantly in meetings, expected to give feedback, attend calls, or be available for synchronous work, they may feel drained, leading to burnout.
Impact: Lower productivity, exhaustion, disengagement, resentment toward “collaboration as a requirement.”
Solution: Establish clear collaboration protocols. Define when synchronous meetings are needed vs asynchronous work. Encourage time-blocking, use project management tools, and audit the collaboration load regularly to prevent overload.
6.3 Decision-Making Imbalance / Inequity
Problem description: In many teams, decision-making authority is concentrated in a few (e.g., extroverted people, dominant personalities, or formal leadership), while others feel excluded.
Impact: Team members disengage, feel undervalued, or stop contributing ideas. Innovation suffers; decisions may be biased.
Solution: Adopt decision-making frameworks (e.g., DECIDE model: Define, Explore, Consider, Identify, Decide, Evaluate), or use RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrix to clarify who contributes to decisions. Rotate decision roles, democratize inputs, ensure every voice is heard.
6.4 Psychological Safety and Trust at the Cultural Level
Problem description: Team members may not feel safe to speak up, admit mistakes, or challenge ideas due to fear of judgment or blame. This lack of psychological safety suppresses honest communication and innovation.
Impact: Shallow conversations, suppressed creativity, unaddressed conflict, and slow learning.
Solution: Leaders should model vulnerability (share own failures), encourage feedback, and explicitly create norms where dissent is welcomed. Regularly check “safety levels” (e.g., via surveys), host reflection sessions, and reward speaking up.
6.5 Social Loafing / Unequal Participation
Problem description: Some team members contribute less (free riding), assuming others will pick up the slack — social loafing.
Impact: Resentment, burnout among high performers, and reduced fairness.
Solution: Make individual contributions visible. Use peer feedback, set individual accountability, clarify roles, and ensure that tasks are fairly distributed. Reward both team and individual performance.
6.6 Structural / Organizational Complexity
Problem description: In large or hierarchical organizations, complexity in structure (multiple sub-teams, departments) makes collaboration hard. Teams might compete, priorities clash, and there’s misalignment.
Solution: Introduce cross-functional governance, clarify team charters, define shared objectives, and align on KPIs. Use shared dashboards, regular cross-team syncs, and role clarity.
How To Overcome Teamwork Challenges?
1. Clarify Roles and Responsibilities
To combat role uncertainty, establish clear and defined roles for each team member. Make sure everyone knows their specific duties and how their tasks contribute to the overall project. Regularly review and update these roles as the project evolves.
Solution:
Clearly outline each team member’s responsibilities at the start.
Maintain an accessible document that tracks roles and responsibilities for easy reference.
Regularly review roles during meetings to ensure everyone stays aligned.
2. Build Trust
To address the lack of trust within a team, focus on fostering open communication and collaboration. Encourage a safe space where team members can share ideas, express concerns, and give feedback.
Solution:
Promote transparent and honest communication.
Implement team-building activities that encourage cooperation.
Recognize and celebrate individual and team achievements to build confidence in each other’s capabilities.
3. Set Clear Goals
To tackle unclear goals, set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals that all team members understand and agree upon. Ensure everyone is on the same page with what is expected and how success is defined.
Engage team members in collaborative goal-setting to create buy-in.
Conduct regular goal check-ins to track progress and adjust as needed.
4. Increase Engagement
To overcome disengagement, ensure that each team member understands the value of their contributions and how their work ties into the bigger picture. Make sure the team feels connected to the mission and motivated.
Solution:
Clearly articulate the team’s vision and how individual tasks contribute to it.
Regularly acknowledge contributions and successes to boost morale.
Personalize tasks to match team members’ strengths and interests, making them feel more engaged.
5. Manage Talent Differences
To address talent differences, tailor task assignments based on each individual’s strengths and abilities. Ensure that high performers are not overburdened, while also providing growth opportunities for those with less experience.
Solution:
Assign tasks that align with team members’ strengths and skills.
Implement mentorship or cross-training programs to bridge skill gaps.
Foster a team-first mindset by encouraging collaboration rather than competition.
We hope this article helps you manage your team effectively. Do let us know about the ways you use to overcome teamwork challenges in your organization. Tell us about the challenges you face when working in groups in the comments below.
Leadership & Team Design Strategies to Prevent Challenges
Leadership & Team Design Strategies
Regular 1-on-1s Focused on Engagement & Trust
Leaders should hold consistent 1-on-1s not just for performance updates, but to check on team morale, psychological safety, and trust. Atlassian recommends asking open questions about how people feel, what worries them, and how their work contributes to purpose.
Use these conversations to spot disengagement early.
Transparent Collaboration Infrastructure
Make collaboration tools and document repositories accessible and “open by default” where possible. This reduces silos and increases knowledge sharing.
Establish norms around how and where work and decisions are recorded (e.g., shared digital workspace, wiki).
Design for Equity: Use Decision Frameworks
Implement a decision-making model (e.g., DECIDE) to ensure participation. Rotate roles (facilitator, decision-maker, reviewer) so no one person dominates.
Use a RACI matrix (Responsible / Accountable / Consulted / Informed) for clarity on roles in decisions and execution.
Team Charter & Norm Setting
At the start (or reboot) of a team/project, co-create a team charter: working norms, meeting cadence, communication style, decision rights, conflict resolution process.
For remote or hybrid teams, include time zone overlapping rules, expected response times, and meeting patterns. This echoes Mural’s advice to use a team charter.
Psychological Safety Mechanisms
Embed routines like “blameless post-mortems” or “retrospectives” where failure is discussed openly.
Leadership should model vulnerability — share learnings from what went wrong, not just victories.
Use surveys or pulse-checks to measure how safe people feel to speak up, then act on feedback.
Recognition & Accountability Systems
Introduce peer-recognition practices (shout-outs, rewards) so contribution is visible.
Combine team KPIs with individual KPIs, so both collective and personal effort is tracked.
Use peer feedback and 360 reviews to surface social loafing or over-contribution.
Conclusion
Teamwork may be the backbone of every successful organization, but it doesn’t become effective by accident. From role ambiguity and trust issues to deeper structural challenges like information silos, collaboration overload, and psychological safety, teams face a complex mix of obstacles that can quietly undermine performance.
Leaders who want to build high-performing teams must go beyond surface-level fixes. That means designing teams with clarity, setting equitable decision-making processes, removing structural barriers, and building an environment where people feel safe to contribute, challenge ideas, and take ownership. When teams are supported with the right systems, frameworks, and cultural norms, collaboration becomes smoother, faster, and measurably more impactful.
If your organization is looking to address these challenges with a more scalable and consistent approach, Engagedly can help. Our platform enables role clarity, continuous feedback, recognition, team alignment, and engagement insights — all essential components of strong teamwork.
Do you want to know how Engagedly can help you manage the challenges of teamwork? Talk to our team experts!
Srikant Chellappa is the Co-Founder and CEO at Engagedly and is a passionate entrepreneur and people leader. He is an author, producer/director of 6 feature films, a music album with his band Manchester Underground, and is the host of The People Strategy Leaders Podcast.
