The Importance of Systems Thinking in Team Coaching

When we talk about high-performing teams, most definitions focus on what happens inside the team itself - communication, collaboration, and trust. These are vital foundations, but in today’s fast-changing, interconnected world, they are only half the picture.

A truly high-performing team also needs to be outward-looking. This means understanding:

• What’s happening outside the team

  
  

• How the team connects with the wider organisational system

  
  

• The needs and perspectives of key stakeholders, customers, and partners

This outward awareness is where systems thinking comes into play.

What is Systems Thinking in Coaching?

Systems thinking invites teams to see themselves as part of a bigger whole rather than an isolated unit. Decisions, behaviours, and relationships within the team have ripple effects across the wider organisation — and, in turn, external forces shape the team’s effectiveness.

Peter Hawkins (2014) captures this beautifully in his definition of systemic team coaching:

“A process by which a team coach works with the whole team, both when they are together and when they are apart, in order to help them improve both their collective performance and how they work together, and also how they develop their collective leadership, to more effectively engage with all their stakeholder groups to jointly transform the wider business.”

This approach shifts the focus from just being a good team to being a good team in context — one that actively engages with the organisation’s broader challenges and opportunities.

Relationships Drive Results

Of course, systems thinking on its own isn’t enough. For a team to step into this wider perspective, it needs a strong foundation of trust, openness, and safety. The relationship between the coach and the team plays a critical role here.

When trust and rapport are present, teams are far more willing to explore new perspectives and challenge unhelpful patterns. Without them, even the best systemic insights may fail to land.

Lanz (2016) highlights this balance in his definition:

“Working with a whole team to support the development of healthy integrated relationships within the individual, between team members and key organisational stakeholders to support the delivery of a team task in the most efficient, enjoyable and sustainable way possible.”

This points to an important truth: relationships are not a “soft extra” — they are a driver of real, measurable results.

Bringing It Together

For coaches and leaders alike, systems thinking isn’t just a useful framework — it’s an essential mindset. By helping teams see beyond themselves, connect with their wider ecosystem, and build strong relational foundations, we create the conditions for sustainable high performance.

In practice, that means not only asking, “How well is the team working together?” but also, “How well is this team serving its stakeholders and shaping the wider system it belongs to?”

Because in the end, great teams don’t just deliver results in isolation — they transform the organisations and communities around them.