I’ve worked on some pretty ineffective marketing teams. And if I’m being honest, I’ve led one too. Not on purpose. I wanted to be a strong leader, someone who got results and kept things moving. But juggling planning, performance, and people was overwhelming at times. So I fell into a very transactional style of leadership.
Looking back, that approach was exactly the problem.
My leadership roots started in the Marine Corps. It’s a very structured, command-driven environment. Orders are given. Orders are followed. There’s a reason it works in that context, but it does not translate well to marketing.
Marketing is fast, collaborative, and messy. It requires flexibility, feedback, and trust. And when leadership relies too heavily on structure and control, it stifles all of that.
It took time to unlearn those habits. I had plenty of examples of what not to do, which helped. But defining what makes a marketing team actually effective was something I had to figure out along the way.
Trust Is the Foundation
I once worked at a company where this idea became very real.
Without trust, things start falling apart. People hesitate to speak up. They hold back ideas. Feedback becomes watered down or disappears entirely. And when mistakes happen, people hide them instead of fixing them.
An effective marketing team has to build trust in a few key ways:
- Trust in leadership. If people don’t believe the marketing lead understands the real problems, they won’t buy into the plan.
- Trust between roles. The content team needs to trust that SEO is giving them direction for a reason. Designers need to know devs will build what was intended.
- Trust that mistakes are okay. If failure leads to blame, everyone plays it safe. And safe marketing isn’t effective marketing.
This isn’t just personal opinion. Google’s research on team performance pointed to five factors that matter most:
- Psychological safety
- Dependability
- Structure and clarity
- Meaning
- Impact
And the biggest factor? Psychological safety. When people don’t feel comfortable speaking up, everything else falls apart.
Keeping Leadership Simple
When I was preparing for my first big marketing leadership role, I read The Leadership Challenge. It was full of great advice around values, vision, culture, and alignment. I took it to heart.
So much so that I created acronyms for my own values. Then I forgot what they stood for.
I had made it too complicated.
Eventually I stripped it back. The best teams I’ve worked on had three things: trust, respect, and encouragement. That’s it. No framework required.
When people feel respected, when they trust the people around them, and when they’re encouraged often enough to keep going through the hard stuff, they perform better. Simple as that.
The Trust Equation
There’s a formula I came across that stuck with me. It’s not just for leaders, but for anyone working in a team.
Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Orientation
Here’s what that actually means in practice:
- Credibility. Do you know what you’re talking about? Does your work actually solve problems?
- Reliability. Do you follow through? Can people count on you to do what you said you’d do?
- Intimacy. Do people feel safe opening up to you? Can they admit when something went wrong without worrying they’ll be judged?
- Self-orientation. Are you focused on the team’s success, or just your own?
If self-orientation is too high, meaning if someone’s clearly looking out for themselves over the group, it undercuts everything else.
Even high performers lose trust when they make everything about them.
Less Ego and More Trust
I’ve seen talented teams crumble because they didn’t trust each other. I’ve also seen lean, under-resourced teams outperform expectations simply because they had each other’s backs and moved quickly.
So if you’re building a marketing team, don’t focus on hiring the biggest name or the loudest voice. Focus on building trust.
Because when a team trusts each other, they solve problems faster. They experiment more. They recover from failures quicker. And they’re more likely to build something meaningful.
It’s not about being perfect. It’s about showing up, following through, and believing in the people around you.
That’s what makes a marketing team actually work.
