Championship teams are more than the sum of their talented parts; they can operate at their highest level because unnecessary friction has been removed from their path. For Rustom Dastoor, EVP of Marketing and Communications for the Americas at Mastercard, removing friction as leaders is foundational to strengthening our teams.
Drawing on lessons from professional sports, Formula 1, and his own experience leading global marketing organizations, Rustom challenged a recent LEAP Essentials class to think differently about what creates and sustains high performance.
"High-performing teams tend to outwork their peer teams," he said. "But hard work alone is not the defining criteria.”
Instead of asking how leaders can get people to work harder, Dastoor focused on a different question: What obstacles are preventing talented people from doing their best work?
Rustom organized his guidance around three ideas: building a culture that wins, winning on speed, and operating as one team.
First, culture. Looking at championship organizations like the New England Patriots and Manchester United, he argued that elite teams eliminate complacency by holding themselves to consistently high standards.
"The friction that they removed was basically complacency, low standards, and a tolerance for mediocrity," he explained. "A culture that is based around excellence tends to outperform teams of equal talent."
That philosophy starts with expectations, where leaders establish an expectation that good enough is not good enough.
High standards become sustainable when they're also tied to purpose. Teams are more engaged when they understand how their work contributes to customers and the broader mission.
"When the goal is a big goal, when there is purpose attached to that goal, people understand how their work impacts the organization,” Rustom said. “And they tend to get behind it more directly and more effectively."
Leaders also strengthen culture by creating ownership instead of simply assigning tasks. Dastoor encouraged participants to help employees "own the outcome, not just the activity," recalling how much more meaningful work became once he was responsible for results instead of simply completing assignments.
Building strong teams requires investing in talent as well. Great leaders develop future leaders, coach continuously, and address underperformance before it becomes accepted behavior.
"I want to have a team of leaders, not just individuals in leadership positions," he said.
Shifting to his second theme of speed, Rustom asks participants to consider whether an organization’s competitive advantage might come from making good decisions faster. This philosophy extends to decision rights, where leaders must get comfortable stepping back and identifying who truly needs to participate in a project or decision.
Finally, Rustom explored what it means to operate as one team through the example of a Formula 1 pit crew: every member knows their role, trusts their teammates, and executes with precision under intense pressure. That example led to one of the session's most memorable questions: "Is your biggest competitor outside your company? Or inside your organizational chart?"
Removing friction between teams begins with trust.
Across all three themes, Rustom returned to the same leadership challenge: identify the friction that slows your team down and remove it intentionally.
That friction can take many forms: mediocrity that goes unchallenged, decision-making that becomes bogged down by unnecessary approvals, or organizational silos that prevent teams from working toward a shared goal. Leaders create stronger teams by setting ambitious standards, empowering the people closest to the work to own the work, developing their future leaders, and building trust rather than tightening control.
Those qualities are built through consistent leadership decisions that create the conditions for people to do their best work every day. And the result is a team that moves with greater speed, accountability, and purpose.
Rustom Dastoor is a global marketing and communications executive focused on enterprise growth, go-to-market execution, and marketing transformation. He leads brand, digital, performance, and communications for Mastercard, one of the world’s most influential global brands, directly aligning marketing strategy to revenue growth, reputation, and corporate priorities.