Most people have come across Bruce Tuckman's model of team development and its four stages: forming, norming, storming and performing. You may know it as a five-stage model, as Tuckman added a fifth phase in the 1970s: adjourning.

Whilst most of us are familiar with the model and probably broadly aware of the characteristics of each of the stages, managers and leaders are often unsure just how those characteristics manifest themselves in real life and, more to the point, what they should do to help their teams progress to the next stage.

In the original article in which he first put forward his model, Tuckman described this stage as follows:

"Groups initially concern themselves with orientation accomplished primarily through testing. Such testing serves to identify the boundaries of both interpersonal and task behaviors. Coincident with testing in the interpersonal realm is the establishment of dependency relationships with leaders, other group members, or pre-existing standards. It may be said that orientation, testing and dependence constitute the group process of forming."

The key words here are orientation, testing and dependence. In this phase of development, members are trying to find their place, or role, in the team. Their focus is on their individual needs and on developing a relationship with the leader and members rely heavily on the team leader for direction.

It is usually easy to understand the concept of the forming stage of a team's development when the team is entirely new, and there is literature galore to be found on the subject. It is much more difficult to find any specific information about what it means when the team is pre-existing but the leader is new.

New leaders often join an existing team with the view that it is already formed and that are simply joining it in an already mature state. It is, however, widely accepted that when a new leader joins a team the team's development reverts to the forming stage regardless of where it was previously at. The length of time it stays in this phase depends on a combination of the maturity of the team and on the skill of the leader.

So as a new leader, how do you recognise the signs that your team has reverted to the forming stage and what can you do to help the team through it?

Each individual is focused on his/her own objectives. They are not sure whether the overall team objectives are still the same or whether you will change everything. Some members may be experiencing some anxiety in terms of their desire to impress the new boss.

Whilst positive relationships may exist between members of the team, there are no relationships with you. There is no trust yet established between you. Team members will be watching and assessing you to see how you respond to different situations. Your behaviour and reactions will potentially have huge impact in terms of how quickly your team members will decide whether you are competent and start to trust you.

There may be some politicking going on within the group. It may be that the team has been leaderless for some time prior to your joining, in which case maybe a team member was taking the role of leader for an interim period. That person may be disappointed, or even resentful, of your arrival to lead the team. There may be allegiances that you are unaware of. Watch for unexplained failure to cooperate or support your integration to the team.

Team members may be questioning their roles in the team. In the time they have been together they will have settled into roles that play to their individual strengths. Some may wonder whether you will change that. They may fear that weaknesses will be exposed. Be conscious of this when you allocate responsibilities and tasks to team members.

You may notice some power games being played. It is likely that your team members know more about the function, processes and tasks for which they are responsible. It is within their power to help you to learn them or to keep it to themselves. You may notice some unwillingness to let you in on the team 'secrets'.

This may all seem very negative, and it is unlikely that you will find all of these things going on at once. If you do, however, remember that these behaviours are symptomatic of concern about change, and where you can alleviate your team members' concerns you can progress to the next stage of developing your team.

Some suggested leadership interventions you might make to achieve this:

Ensure that you have the same understanding as your existing team members of what the team is required to deliver. Get everyone together and discuss it. Clarify the key deliverables and timescales. Identify where the team is up to in terms of delivery, and where there are issues.

Take the time early on to set objectives with each individual team member. Be clear about what you expect. Talking this through with them and agreeing the way forward will serve to establish some ground rules, and will alleviate much of any concern they may have about how you perceive them or their work.

Help the team to get to know you. Left to its own devices, this can be a long and tedious process. Team members will form their own perceptions of you, and you of them. Consider undertaking a facilitated exercise where you help the team to know more about you as a person as well as a leader, and vice-versa.

Provide a lot of direction. Many new leaders join teams and try to leave the team to its own devices, almost taking a subordinate role in the early days. This doesn't tend to work. In this phase, team members do not yet know your style or your standards. They don't want to get it wrong, so they will look to you to tell them what they should be doing until they become more comfortable with you.

Meet regularly with the individual members of your team, and communicate, communicate, communicate.

These five simple steps are just some of the things you can start to do right now to form the team you want from the team you have. Start implementing these and you'll be well on your way to the next stage of the team's development and ultimately to high performance.

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