How to build high-performing teams: 5 traits to hire for

High-performing teams are not built by chance. The strongest teams tend to share the same underlying qualities: strong problem-solving, dependable follow-through, resilience under pressure, integrity, and emotional intelligence. If you want better team performance, you need to hire for the traits that actually drive it.

Here's what caught our attention: Connected teams show 21% higher profitability, 41% less absenteeism, and 59% less turnover than disconnected ones (Gallup, 2024). Yet 75% of cross-functional teams fail to meet their basic objectives.

The difference? It's not about skills or experience. It's about five specific psychological traits that we can actually measure during hiring. As business psychologists who've spent over a decade studying workplace performance, we've identified the exact characteristics that separate high-performers from the rest.

High-performing teams are built on the right individual traits

High-performing teams do not emerge from team-building sessions or good intentions alone. They are usually made up of people who think well, follow through, cope with pressure, act with integrity, and work effectively with others.

That matters because most team problems are not really technical problems. They are problems of judgement, consistency, trust, stress tolerance, and communication. If you want better team outcomes, those are the qualities you need to identify earlier.

The five most important traits are:

Problem-solving ability is one of the strongest drivers of team performance

Let's start with the big one: cognitive ability tests can account for up to 25% of job performance variance (American Psychological Association, 2024). That's a stronger predictor than experience, education, or interview performance.

Problem-solving ability is one of the clearest indicators of whether someone can handle complexity, learn quickly, and make sound decisions. In practice, this means spotting patterns, understanding new information quickly, and adjusting when the first plan does not work.

In teams, this trait matters because strong problem-solvers do more than solve their own tasks well. They help move discussions forward, identify root causes, and improve decision quality across the group.

Look for people who can:

The best way to assess this is through cognitive or aptitude testing, especially when it measures multiple aspects of reasoning rather than relying on one narrow task. The current page already points to numerical, verbal, and abstract reasoning, which is a good basis to keep.

Conscientiousness is what makes performance consistent

Here's a stat that stopped us in our tracks: conscientiousness shows positive effects across 98% of work-related variables (University of Minnesota, 2019). That's not a typo—98%.

Plenty of candidates can perform well occasionally. What separates strong team members is consistency. Conscientious people tend to be dependable, disciplined, and more likely to follow through on the things they commit to. This matters because teams rely on trust in execution. People need to know that deadlines will be met, standards will be maintained, and responsibilities will not be dropped when attention shifts elsewhere.

In practice, conscientiousness often shows up as:

This is usually best assessed through a well-designed workplace personality questionnaire. Interviews can help, but they are far less reliable on their own because candidates can present themselves as organised and hard-working without much evidence behind it. The current page also includes useful interview red flags, and those could be retained in a tighter box if you want them.

Resilience helps teams stay effective when pressure rises

If the 2020 pandemic taught us anything, it's that change is the only constant. Teams that thrive don't just survive setbacks, they use them as springboards for innovation and growth.

Resilient team members act as emotional shock absorbers, helping the entire team maintain performance during stressful periods. Research shows they're also less likely to burn out and more likely to stay with your organisation long-term.

Resilient team members act as emotional shock absorbers, helping the entire team maintain performance during stressful periods. Research shows they're also less likely to burn out and more likely to stay with your organisation long-term.

Every team performs well when things are calm. The difference shows when workloads rise, plans change, or setbacks hit. Resilient people are more likely to stay constructive, recover quickly, and keep moving forward without dragging down others around them.

That has a wider team effect. Teams become more stable when key people remain composed and adaptable during difficult periods.

You are usually looking for people who:

Resilience is harder to measure through self-description alone, so structured interview questions and relevant behavioural assessment content are usually more useful than informal conversation.

In practice, conscientiousness often shows up as:

This is usually best assessed through a well-designed workplace personality questionnaire. Interviews can help, but they are far less reliable on their own because candidates can present themselves as organised and hard-working without much evidence behind it. The current page also includes useful interview red flags, and those could be retained in a tighter box if you want them.

Integrity is what makes teams trustworthy and accountable

Trust is the oxygen of high-performing teams. Without it, even the most talented groups fall apart. People with high integrity don't just follow rules—they create the psychological safety that allows teams to take risks and innovate.

People with integrity are more likely to be honest, own mistakes, act consistently, and make decisions that hold up under pressure. That matters not just for ethics, but for day-to-day team functioning. Teams work better when people are straightforward, dependable, and willing to take responsibility.

If you're looking to interview candidate with the intention of measuring their integrity, check out our recommended 5 effective interview questions to measure integrity.

Emotional intelligence improves communication and collaboration

Remember that 86% of workplace failures we mentioned earlier? Most trace back to communication breakdowns. People with high emotional intelligence don't just avoid these problems—they actively prevent them.

They're the ones who sense when tensions are rising, know how to defuse conflicts before they explode, and help team members feel heard and valued.

How to assess emotional intelligence

Unlike cognitive ability, emotional intelligence is best measured through multiple methods:

The best hiring processes assess these traits directly

If these traits matter to team performance, they need to be measured directly. Relying on CVs, unstructured interviews, or general impressions is not enough.

Here's the reality check: most hiring processes waste time on the wrong things. CVs tell you about past experiences, not future performance. Interviews are easily gamed. Reference checks are often just box-ticking exercises.

But when you measure these five traits systematically, you'll identify top performers with 80% accuracy before they even start work.

A stronger process is usually:

Ready to discover what 'Great' looks like?

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Conclusion and next steps

High-performing teams are usually built from the same core ingredients: good thinking, reliable execution, resilience, integrity, and strong interpersonal judgement. These qualities can be assessed much more effectively than most hiring teams currently do.

If you want to build stronger teams, the priority is simple: stop relying so heavily on surface-level signals and start measuring the traits that actually drive performance.

If you would like to define what high performance looks like in your own roles, book a call with our team about the right assessment approach for your organisation.

Primary author

Ben Schwencke

Digital Marketing Manager at Test Partnership. Over 7 years experience as a writer, content strategist, SEO and digital marketer.

Contributed to by:

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Ben Hopgood