27 February 2025
The secrets of high performance: the great divide
The goals of any organisation haven’t changed that much over the last few decades. We want efficiency. Productivity. Growth. But the nuances of how we achieve those goals are causing friction. A fresh approach is needed.
To uncover those approaches, we’ve surveyed 1500 employees across HR, payroll and finance. We also talked to 150 C-suite executives. The questions were all themed around what it takes to create a high-performing organisation, a little bit of self-reflection on where there’s room to improve, and the role of tech in powering a sustainable team.
The result? A bigger divide than we thought possible. Let’s unpack it all a little.
What is high performance?
Firstly, getting a solid definition is important so we’re all working with the same assumptions.
At MHR, we believe that a high-performance organisation is one that operates using strong management policies that lead to sustainably better financial results than your peer group. Sustainability is key here. It’s simple enough to perform better financially one year, but being able to withstand sudden changes in the market is what sets a true high-performing organisation apart.
Through our survey, and the work of theorist André de Waal, we identified ten key drivers that were generally agreed to create a high-performing team.
- Shared vision and goals
- People given empowerment and autonomy
- Clear communication, collaboration, and feedback
- Openness to risk taking and innovation
- A culture of learning and growth
- Operational/process excellence
- Agility and adaptability to change
- Commitment to recruiting, retaining, and developing top talent
- High employee engagement
- Future focus and investment
These factors show one thing above all else: high-performance organisations aren’t built in silos. They require teamwork and alignment. A shared vision. Clear goals. Where are we struggling to make these connections?
The great divide among leaders and employees
The biggest problem? It’s a disconnect between what employees and leaders think about high performance. Our research clearly shows that not only do employees and leader define high performance differently, they also have different ideas about where the organisation as a whole succeeds and fails.
While 91% of employees said their team was high-performing, just 51% of the leaders who ran those functions agreed. Employees also tend to think they excel at communicating, while leaders think this is the area where their employees are weakest.
Even more troubling, employees don’t know how deep this division goes, with 66% of them feeling that their leaders are aligned with what high performance looks like. With this level of disconnect, it’s no wonder organisations are struggling to achieve sustainable high performance.
Employees and leaders speak a different language
Employees felt that the most important factor leading to high performance is a highly skilled team overseen by effective stable leadership. But for leaders, high performance is about operational excellence, moving quickly and retaining the best talent.
Put simply, employees want predictability. Leaders want agility.
Employees are far more likely to blame individuals for poor performance, with 25% citing lacking skills as a blocker. Meanwhile, leaders are also far more likely to cite structural, systemic issues like company culture or siloed data as more critical. That makes sense when you consider leaders tend to have the big picture in mind.
That’s not to say either group is right or wrong. Leaders may see the big picture, but that can often lead to blind spots when it comes to day-to-day practicalities. An employee who feels their team is lacking critical skills likely has a point!
Nerves from the top down due to uncertain leadership
When 73% of employees say they know what high performance looks like, but only 50% of leaders agree, it’s worth digging deeper to figure out why.
High performance filters from the top down. When there’s a clear vision and steps to follow it’s a lot easier to unlock true potential. But 25% of leaders say that their CEO doesn’t know what high performance looks like, while a further 27% say that their CEO doesn’t help them achieve it.
Similarly, while 50% of leaders said they know what high performance looks like, only 47% said they had a clear understanding of how to create it. It’s easy to dismiss these findings as leaders not listening to their employees. It’s more likely that most have doubts about their own ability to action an effective high-performance plan.
When leaders are this uncertain, it’s no wonder that the message can get misunderstood as it moves down to employees. Everyone puts their own spin on it, so unless a clear vision is stated from the outset and strongly communicated to everyone, you’ll never get a unified picture of high performance.
A challenging climate means an anxious outlook
The reality facing a lot of organisations right now is that 2025 is already shaping up to be another challenging year.
We also need to accept the fact that 2026 is not likely to be less challenging. The uncertain economic climate means there are no quick fixes aren’t around the corner. This is reflected in our survey – 37% of leaders say they’re worried about their organisation’s ability to sustain high performance for the next five years.
Crucially, though, while employees are also a little anxious about the future (33% of them are worried about the next five years), they’re not allowing this to distract them. Nearly two-thirds of employees say they want their business to be more ambitious when it comes to growth. Leaders are a little more cautious (48%), but the message is clear. Letting anxiety hold us back is a real barrier to high performance.
The importance of tech in high performance
There’s one area where there’s almost complete alignment: the importance of tech in powering high performance. It’s universally regarded as a key factor to achieve high performance. 100% of leaders and 99% of employees agree!
Where there is a difference, it seems to be that employees have a lot more enthusiasm about the specific tech that can help them. For example, 47% of employees think that HR software, financial software and any tools that enable collaboration are vital to high performance.
Fundamentally, this is another difference of perspective. An employee can think of the quantifiable ways that a piece of software can help them. A leader will worry that tech cannot be a sticking plaster. Good technology will not make a low-performing team strong on its own.
But it can certainly help overcome some key obstacles, especially around data. Around 69% of employees feel that without real-time data and insights, they’ll never really improve their organisational performance. Getting the right data to make decisions that matter when they matter most is key.
What comes next?
With all this information, we can start to make real, lasting change in our organisations, and find a a fresh approach to high performance. That change starts with the leadership team.
It’s worth surveying your team about high performance to figure out how your employees really feel. Where there’s a discrepancy between them and you, take the time to figure out why. What do they feel is holding them back? Is it a lack of learning and development opportunities? Is it legacy technology that isn’t fit for purpose anymore? Or are you struggling to show them your vision for where the company will be in a year, five years or ten?
This blog is only a small snapshot of the huge swathes of data we’ve uncovered through this survey. If you want to dig deeper and figure out the key sticking points, including what employees really think about AI, download the full Secrets of High Performance research report.
