CliftonStrengths^® and Team Experiences: Insights on Trust, Collaboration and Manager Impact

Executive Summary

Two people can work on the same team, report to the same manager and still experience different impressions of how well that team is functioning. These different perceptions of team culture are shaped by each person’s natural talents and dominant ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.

Drawing on Gallup’s meta-analytic research and two large-scale surveys with individuals who had completed the CliftonStrengths assessment, this report examines how people’s strengths shape their perceptions of their best and worst team experiences, conflict, and interactions with their managers.

Key Findings

1. The best team experiences are defined by trust, collaboration and meaningful contribution.

   Individuals with different leading CliftonStrengths domains and talent themes consistently said their best teams were those where people trusted one another, collaborated effectively, and contributed to meaningful or impactful work. Open-ended responses reinforced these experiences. The strongest team experiences were marked by commitment and dedication, trust and respect, and effective collaboration and teamwork. People remember their best teams not only because they achieved results, but also because the team worked well together while doing work that mattered.

2. The worst teams are remembered for relationship breakdowns more than task failures.

   The most frequently selected reasons for dysfunctional teams were lacking trust and strong relationships, struggling to collaborate effectively as a team, and failing to recognize or value teammates’ contributions. When respondents described their most dysfunctional, or worst, team experiences, the most common themes were poor leadership, lack of collaboration and teamwork, lack of communication, toxic culture, and trust issues. Poor team experiences are often less about isolated performance problems and more about the breakdown of trust, communication and mutual respect.

3. Individuals’ natural talents shape what they notice and value in team experiences.

   People who lead with different CliftonStrengths themes often emphasized different aspects of their best and worst teams:

   • Respondents who lead with Executing themes were more likely than those who lead with other themes to emphasize deadline-related aspects of strong teams.

   • Those who lead with Influencing themes were more likely to emphasize a variety of factors related to relationships and idea generation.

   • Respondents who lead with Relationship Building themes were more likely to emphasize trust, recognition and collaboration.

   • Those who lead with Strategic Thinking themes were more likely to emphasize creativity and future-oriented thinking.

4. Perceptions about the type of conflict on teams were similar across people who lead with different strengths domains.

   When respondents indicated the type of conflict that happens on their teams, patterns were generally consistent across those with different leading CliftonStrengths domains. However, people’s natural talents — their tendencies in how they think, feel and behave — can influence how team members interpret conflict, what they notice first during conflict and how they prefer to work through tension. For teams, the opportunity in conflict is to use CliftonStrengths as a common language for understanding different approaches, communication styles and expectations.

5. Managers play a defining role in whether teams thrive or break down.

   Respondents described their best managers as those who provide support, trust and autonomy, empathy, clear communication, leadership, fairness, recognition, and innovation. Respondents described their worst managers as micromanaging, arrogant, poor at leadership and communication, unavailable, unfair, and lacking empathy and trust.

The Current State of Teams

Team Sizes Are Growing

The average U.S. team has grown by nearly 50% since 2013, from about eight direct reports per manager to 12. Median team size has remained fairly steady over the same time period, with about five to six employees per manager or leader, indicating that the largest teams are the ones getting bigger.

Gallup’s research shows how employee engagement translates into business outcomes across different team sizes, revealing that there is no single best team size that applies across every organization or industry for maximizing engagement and performance. In a 2026 meta-analysis of 92,252 teams of different sizes, Gallup researchers found that higher engagement is linked to increased productivity, increased wellbeing and lower turnover for small teams of four to nine employees and medium teams of 10 to 19 employees. For large teams of 20 or more employees, engagement is positively associated with higher wellbeing, but the relationship between engagement, productivity and turnover varies by industry.

A team’s industry, type of work (i.e., individual contributor vs. manager responsibilities) and managerial talent influence how a manager can turn engagement into stronger team performance. Managers need support from their leaders, clear operational systems and strong development tools to maintain connection, coordination and accountability as their span of control grows.

Connection Is Weak

Recent Gallup research on team effectiveness from a Gallup Panel^TM workforce study in the fourth quarter of 2025¹ shows that many employees are still missing the basic conditions that help teams work well together. Across several dimensions of team quality, including clarity, belonging and continuous improvement, fewer than half of U.S. employees indicate their teams are getting these fundamentals right:

Many teams are missing the everyday conditions that make teamwork feel clear, connected and intentional. Without shared expectations, a strong sense of belonging and regular reflection on how to improve, teams may struggle to coordinate work, build trust and reach their goals.

¹ See the Methodology section for study details.

Hybrid and Remote Work Add Complexity

Although some organizations have adopted best practices for different work arrangements, many teams still struggle to build trust, establish expectations, collaborate well and manage effectively across work locations.

As of May 2026, 52% of U.S. full-time, remote-capable employees work in a hybrid work arrangement, 26% work exclusively remotely and 22% work on-site. Employees’ expected long-term locations suggest that hybrid flexibility is likely to continue: 52% expect to continue working in a hybrid arrangement, 25% expect to work remotely and 23% expect to work on-site in the long term.

Disruption Disproportionately Affects Leaders

In today’s workplaces, leaders and managers are expected to help employees navigate uncertainty while experiencing greater levels of disruption themselves. Gallup finds that leaders and managers are 56% more likely than individual contributors to report experiencing extensive disruptive change in their organization. When leaders are stretched by ongoing disruption, their ability to provide clarity, support and direction to their teams can become strained.

AI Use Is Increasing and Changing How Teams Work

For the first time since Gallup began measuring employee use of artificial intelligence (AI), more than half of employed U.S. adults, 52%, say they use AI in their roles at least a few times a year, as of the second quarter of 2026.

While 65% of employees in organizations implementing AI say it has improved their productivity and efficiency, only 12% strongly agree that AI has transformed how work gets done in their organization, as of the first quarter of 2026.

For teams, AI use creates a new coordination challenge. AI may help individuals complete tasks more efficiently, but many teams have yet to agree on how to use AI and integrate it into their shared expectations and workflows.

Matrixed Teams Require Flexibility and Introduce Unique Challenges

Matrixed teams, in which employees work across multiple teams, projects or leaders, aim to collaborate effectively and work with agility to reach team and organizational goals. Gallup identifies several types of matrixed employees:

• slightly matrixed employees who sometimes work on multiple teams with people who may or may not report to the same manager

• manager-matrixed employees who work on multiple teams every day, though most team members report to the same manager

• highly matrixed employees who work daily across teams with people reporting to different managers

Gallup research on matrixed teams, based on a 2019 Gallup Panel workforce study of more than 14,000 U.S. employees, found that 72% of employees were working across multiple teams at least some of the time before the pandemic. In a 2025 fourth quarter Gallup Panel workforce study of 22,368 U.S. employees, 69% said they work across multiple teams with different people every day or some days.²

² See the Methodology section for study details.

What Are the Benefits and Challenges of Matrixed Teams?

Matrixed team structures can create meaningful benefits, including cross-functional collaboration and additional opportunities for development. Matrixed teams work effectively when leaders and managers set clear expectations for roles, priorities, and communication norms and when project managers and people managers work together to provide clarity, feedback, development, and connection opportunities across teams.

At the same time, matrixed work can introduce challenges, including role ambiguity, cognitive overload, meeting fatigue, reduced clarity around responsibilities and project ownership, and inconsistent expectations regarding work location (i.e., on-site, hybrid or remote) and AI use.

Two people facing the same AI-enabled hybrid workplace may have different perspectives about their experiences on that team due to how they interpret guidance from their managers and matrixed team members and whether they value how their team operates. These different perspectives are influenced by their strengths.

How CliftonStrengths Domains Shape Team Experiences

Gallup recontact studies in the second and fourth quarters of 2025³ sought to reveal if individuals who lead with different CliftonStrengths domains and themes perceive their team environment differently.

Results showed that differences in people’s leading CliftonStrengths domains shape their perceptions of team experiences.

The fourth quarter survey revealed these differences in how people experience their teams based on the CliftonStrengths domain they lead with:

• People who lead with the Executing domain were 16% more likely to report that they know what their coworkers are expected to do than those who lead with the Strategic Thinking domain.

• People who lead with the Influencing domain were 26% more likely to report that they feel like part of their team than those who lead with the Strategic Thinking domain.

• People who lead with the Relationship Building domain were 11% more likely to say their manager creates an open and trusting environment than respondents who lead with the Executing domain.

• People who lead with the Relationship Building domain were 10% more likely to report that someone on their team causes a lot of problems than those who lead with the Executing domain.

³ See the Methodology section for study details.

Navigating Team Conflict With a Strengths-Based Perspective

Conflict is a normal part of teamwork, especially when people care deeply about the same outcomes but approach the work differently. Because a person’s natural talents are the filter through which they perceive their work, their teammates and what "good performance" looks like, differences of opinion, approach or rationale are often expressions of different strengths.

When respondents on the 2025 fourth quarter CliftonStrengths Recontact Panel survey were asked what conflict on their team typically involved, they could indicate that conflict did not occur on their team or that conflict was usually about work approach, tasks, goals or priorities; personality, communication style or relationship differences; or an even mix of both. Across groups of individuals who lead with different CliftonStrengths domains, response patterns were generally consistent, suggesting that the sources of conflict that people experience do not differ substantially by dominant domain. Therefore, strengths awareness and development are not helpful for predicting what teams will clash over. Rather, they give teams a shared language for effectively working through tension once it arises.

When conflict happens on your team, what does it tend to be about? Select one.

% Selected by respondents who lead with each domain

How Managers Influence Team Experiences

Strong managers create team environments marked by trust, autonomy, support, communication and fairness, while ineffective managers often weaken team experiences through micromanagement, poor communication or lack of empathy.

Effective managers set the tone for how team members perform and collaborate:

• They define what "quality work" looks like and connect that definition to specific performance standards.

• They guide team members in the same direction while supporting employees with their day-to-day experiences and challenges.

• They address breakdowns in collaboration, redistribute work fairly and create opportunities for the team to improve how they operate together.

One strategy for fostering a healthy team mindset and positive team experiences is making strengths-based conversations part of how work gets done. Great managers look for opportunities for team members to develop their strengths in ways that support the team’s goals, and they weave strengths language into everyday conversations about priorities, collaboration, problem-solving and growth.

According to Gallup's span-of-control research published in 2026, an engaged, effective manager can achieve higher team engagement than a disengaged, ineffective manager, regardless of team size, and more talented managers can serve as a buffer against the negative effects of growing teams.

What Employees Say About Their Best and Worst Managers

In the 2025 fourth quarter CliftonStrengths Recontact Panel study, respondents were asked via open-ended items to describe their best and worst managers ever. The open-ended responses were coded into major themes.

Theme	Description
Support and Encouragement	Actively backs team members with coaching, resources and advocacy while encouraging growth and confidence
Trust and Autonomy	Provides clear goals and guardrails and then trusts members to own the work; does not micromanage
Empathy and Care	Sees employees as valued human beings versus interchangeable resources; listens, validates and responds with humanity
Communication and Transparency	Communicates expectations honestly and early; maintains open two-way dialogue
Leadership and Inspiration	Sets a clear, motivating direction; leads by example
Integrity and Fairness	Leads with equity in mind and does not play favorites; shares credit and owns mistakes
Recognition and Appreciation	Notices good work, gives meaningful recognition and invests in growth
Problem-Solving and Innovation	Approaches challenges with curiosity, invites ideas and supports experimentation
Note: For responses that included multiple themes, Gallup coded the response based on the first theme mentioned.

Theme	Description
Micromanagement	Over-controls through constant monitoring and second-guessing, stripping autonomy
Arrogance and Self-Centeredness	Dismisses ideas, hoards credit, deflects blame and uses power to protect ego
Lack of Empathy and Support	Dismisses employee needs; responds to challenges with indifference or blame
Poor Leadership and Manager Skills	Fails to set direction, make decisions or communicate clearly
Lack of Communication	Withholds information; communicates late or only in crisis
Unavailability and Disengagement	Physically or psychologically absent; minimally invested
Favoritism and Bias	Applies standards unevenly; undermines trust and fairness
Lack of Trust	Assumes incompetence; closely monitors and restricts decision-making
Note: For responses that included multiple themes, Gallup coded the response based on the first theme mentioned.

Perceptions of what makes a manager great versus ineffective were strikingly similar among individuals who lead with different CliftonStrengths domains. Across strengths profiles, respondents described many of the same leadership behaviors: clear communication, listening, support, trust and responsiveness. In other words, great management is not defined by a manager’s personality, but by how consistently they show up for their team. How managers communicate, listen and respond shapes whether employees feel equipped to speak up, do their best work and contribute to meeting the team’s goals.

Common Questions About Team Experiences

What Defines the Best Team Experiences?

From Gallup's latest research on the best and worst team experiences, people most frequently indicated that their best team dynamics included trust between team members and from the manager, strong relationships, effective collaboration and meaningful work.

How Do CliftonStrengths Domains Shape Perceptions of Team Experiences?

Gallup has examined the connection between CliftonStrengths domains and the best and worst team experiences. In its studies, respondents who led with the Executing domain were generally more likely than respondents who led with different domains to say the reasons for their best team experiences included task- and results-related aspects of their work, while those who led with the Strategic Thinking domain were generally more likely to emphasize creativity and future-oriented thinking. Respondents who led with the Relationship Building domain were generally more likely to emphasize trust, recognition and collaboration, while those who led with the Influencing domain were generally more likely to emphasize factors regarding relationships and idea generation. These experiences across respondents show that people with different CliftonStrengths perceive their team dynamics differently.

What Causes Team Dysfunction?

Gallup’s research found that when respondents described their most dysfunctional, or worst, team experiences, the most common themes were poor leadership, lack of collaboration and teamwork, lack of communication, toxic culture, and trust issues. In a close-ended survey item asking why a team was the most dysfunctional team they’ve been a part of, the most frequently selected reasons were lacking trust and strong relationships, struggling to collaborate effectively, and failing to recognize or value teammates’ contributions. Respondents also identified why someone was the worst manager they have ever had, and descriptions reflected micromanagement, lack of communication, lack of trust and other factors. Team dysfunction is often less about isolated performance problems and more about the breakdown of trust, communication and mutual respect within a team.

What Manager Behaviors Affect Team Experiences?

Gallup research in 2025 on the best and worst team experiences showed that across respondents with different CliftonStrengths profiles, respondents described great managers in strikingly similar ways that reflected the managers’ behaviors, saying great managers provide support and encouragement, trust and autonomy, empathy and care, communication and transparency, leadership and inspiration, integrity and fairness, recognition and appreciation, and problem-solving and innovation. Great manager behaviors also include core leadership skills that define how to be an effective leader.