Short answer: Hackman's model of team effectiveness says a leader cannot force a team to succeed. A leader can only create five conditions that make success more likely: a real team, a compelling direction, an enabling structure, a supportive context and expert coaching [2]. The new AQA 7138 course names the model in topic 3.2.1, and unit 3.2 is examined on Paper 2 [1].
What the 7138 specification asks
Topic 3.2.1 covers how businesses manage people. Under teamwork, you need to know the purpose and value of teams, and the factors that influence how effective a team is. The specification names Hackman's model as the framework for those factors [1].
The same topic lists three leadership styles: autocratic, democratic and transformational [1]. Hackman's model and transformational leadership are both new to 7138. Neither appears in the old 7132 course. Laissez-faire leadership was in 7132 but is not listed in 7138. We explain all the changes in AQA A-Level Business is changing.
The purpose and value of teams
A team is a small group of people who share a goal and depend on each other to reach it. That second part matters. A group of staff who simply sit near each other is not a team.
Businesses use teams for three main reasons:
- A mix of skills. A product launch may need marketing, finance and operations staff. A team brings these skills to one task.
- Better ideas and decisions. People with different views can spot problems that one person would miss.
- Motivation. Teams can meet social needs, which links to Maslow, and can give staff more responsibility, which links to Herzberg.
Teams also have costs. Meetings take time, decisions can be slower, and some members may do less work than others. Hackman was blunt about this. He said research shows teams often underperform, "despite all the extra resources they have" [2]. So the exam question is rarely "are teams good?" It is "what conditions make this team work?"
Hackman's model of team effectiveness: the five conditions
J. Richard Hackman was a professor of social and organisational psychology at Harvard University. He set out the conditions in his 2002 book Leading Teams and summarised them in a 2009 Harvard Business Review (HBR) interview [2][3]. This guide uses that five-condition version.
| Condition | What it means | Sign it is missing |
|---|---|---|
| Real team | Members know who is on the team, share one task and stay together long enough to learn to work together [2][3]. | Membership keeps changing, or nobody is sure who is responsible. |
| Compelling direction | A clear, challenging purpose that members know and agree on [2]. | Staff work hard on different priorities. |
| Enabling structure | A well-designed task, the right mix of people and clear norms of conduct (rules for how the team behaves) [2]. Small teams tend to do better [3]. | The team is too big, or meetings have no rules. |
| Supportive context | The wider organisation helps the team, through rewards, information and training [2][3]. | Pay rewards individuals only, so nobody helps a colleague. |
| Expert coaching | Help for the team as a group, timed well, for example at the start, midpoint and end of a project [2][3]. | The manager only steps in when something goes wrong. |
On team size, Hackman's rule of thumb was "no double digits" [2]. Because every new member adds links that must be managed, the cost of co-ordination rises quickly as a team grows.
Other versions of the model
You may see the model grouped differently. Ruth Wageman, who built a team survey with Hackman, now uses six conditions, adding "right people" as a separate condition [4][7]. In a 2016 HBR article, Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen kept three of Hackman's conditions and added a fourth, a shared mindset, for teams spread across places [5]. Use the five conditions in the exam, but knowing the debate can support evaluation.
Real evidence: airline crews and hybrid teams
Some of Hackman's clearest evidence comes from aviation. He reported that 73% of incidents in a US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) database happened on a crew's first day flying together. Of those, 44% happened on the crew's very first flight [2]. This supports the real team condition. Crews that had not yet learned to work together were where most incidents happened.
This matters for UK firms today. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that 28% of workers in Great Britain were hybrid workers between 8 January and 30 March 2025. Hybrid means splitting time between home and a workplace [6]. When members are rarely in the same place, a real team and a shared direction are harder to build. This is the problem Haas and Mortensen's fourth condition tries to solve [5].
The link to transformational leadership
Transformational leadership is when a leader inspires staff with a vision and develops them, so they aim higher than their basic targets. It fits Hackman's model in two places. A transformational leader is well placed to set a compelling direction. They also tend to coach and develop staff, which supports the expert coaching condition.
But Hackman warns against relying on one leader. In the 2009 interview he said even the best leader "can't make a team do well" [2]. Charisma cannot fix a team that is too large or a pay system that rewards individuals. An autocratic leader may set direction quickly, but may leave little room for the team to own it. The 7138 specification also links transformational leadership to agile business in topic 3.3.4 [1].
Practice question, in our own words: A software firm has moved its product teams to hybrid working. Assess whether a supportive context is the most important condition for these teams to be effective.
Analysis: If the firm only rewards individual sales, members have little reason to share code or help a colleague. So the team works as separate people, problems are found late, and launches slip. Because hybrid staff rely on shared information systems, a poor system makes this worse.
Counter-argument: However, a supportive context does little if the team lacks a compelling direction. Staff who disagree on priorities will use good systems to work on the wrong things.
Judgement: A supportive context is most important where the team already agrees on its goal, such as a stable team with a clear product. For a new hybrid team, direction and real team membership come first. So it depends on how long the team has existed.
Notice the structure. Each step is joined by "so" or "because", the counter-argument uses another condition from the same model, and the judgement names what it depends on.
Practise the new 7138 topics
Our free Business starter pack covers people, marketing, finance and operations with real UK businesses and practice questions.
Get the free packFor quizzes on this model and the rest of Paper 2, see the CC Business platform, Year 12 track. Most tutors teach the subject. We teach the criterion.
Sources
- AQA (2025). AS and A-level Business 7137/7138 specification, version 1.0, October 2025.
- Coutu, D. (2009). Why teams don't work: an interview with J. Richard Hackman. Harvard Business Review, May 2009 (copy hosted by Boston University).
- Hackman, J. R. (2002). Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. Harvard Business School Press, summarised by the SERP Institute.
- 6 Team Conditions (2026). Teams reimagined: the framework.
- Haas, M. and Mortensen, M. (2016). The secrets of great teamwork. Harvard Business Review, June 2016 (copy hosted by Columbia University).
- Office for National Statistics (2025). Who has access to hybrid work in Great Britain?, 11 June 2025.
- 6 Team Conditions (2026). Dr Ruth Wageman: profile.