Making great leaders and teams

By David Wee | Mar 12, 2009

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The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born. 

Leadership is a learned skill! But it is a skill that needs to be continually updated as the business world moves. You also need to know how to build a team so you can achieve great things together.

A team is like coal on fire -- together, they glow; apart, they grow cold. Coming together is a start; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

What separates a great team from a bunch of people who can't work together? A great team needs a good leader. He rallies the team, gives them the big picture and gets them focused towards the goal. He is the cheerleader who motivates the group to work towards success. Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald said: "None of us is more important than the rest of us."

Teams must share information unselfishly. The same information may be put to good use by another team member who is good at seeing relationships. We can't achieve our goals alone. We get a better perspective of a problem when sharing it with others who have different experiences and insights.

Teams provide opportunities for interaction. Although each department in a company is a team, it must also cooperate with other departments in the company. Some departments guard their interests so jealously that they are autonomous regions within a big nation. This works to the detriment of the company.

Teams share glories of success and bear the blame for failures. This ideal helps to cement the idea of working together as one happy family. It creates a sense of belonging and unity.

You must get the right people to form a good team. Selecting a group of people who can work well together is an art. Borrowing a principle from magnetism, opposite poles attract, so try to form a team of people with different skills, talents, and experience. Creative people contribute enormously to the success of a team.

You need a catalyst for every team. In chemistry, a catalyst is a substance that causes or speeds up a reaction without it self being affect. In teamwork, a catalyst is a person who precipitates an event or a change. Such people contribute ideas to keep team moving forward. They are passionate about what they do and this motivates the others.

Catalysts are often talented. They offer to do many things. They not only make promises but they deliver. In study groups, they are the ones who will type out the notes neatly and make copies for everyone present. They offer to do the PowerPoint presentations without being asked.