What makes a Great Team

“What makes a great team?” - The question kept me thinking for several days. People never forget to talk about leadership, motivation and empowerment while defining a great team. Although these are essential ingredients which go into building a successful team but a different perspective goes into building a “great team”.

Henry ford said “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success”....... I just want to add one more perspective to it – “Thinking together is greatness”.

What I feel is that “A great leader may build a great team but a great team will always give a great leader”. Now some people might debate, which comes first – the leader or the team. Let’s look at an example:

The famous Orpheus Chamber Orchestra of New York City has won the heart and minds of millions by staging the greatest performances ever, but “without a leader”. The leadership roles are taken up by members in turns while the rest of the members “thinks together” and contributes to create the magic in their performances.

Photo credit - Scott Maxwell

“Leadership” is a “top heavy” word and clearly discriminates the leader from the rest of the team. Although the role of a leader in a team is non-negotiable, the spectrum of leadership which nourishes collective thinking only has the right to achieve sustainable greatness. Some leaders feel tempted to act intelligent to establish their supremacy but an effective leader creates a collective opinion by allowing everyone to contribute their ideas.

A successful organisation is the one which has more market share but sustainable greatness is achieved by organisations which invest more in training, development and R&D creating intellectual and proprietary capital.

A great team is actually a group of great leaders who exercise “thinking leadership” to leverage team’s thinking ability and create magical synergy.