Given equal talent, leadership makes the difference – it ensures that what the team needs right now actually happens.
A team can have everything it needs: good people, a task, enough resources. And still it stalls. Usually what is missing then is not talent. What is missing is someone who sees what is needed right now and makes sure it happens.
The team principle in detail
Four steps through the principle: understand, check, connect, apply. Open any topic to read more.
The explanationThat is exactly what this principle means by leadership. Leadership here is a task, not a title.
- That is exactly what this principle means by leadership.
- Leadership here is a task, not a title.
- It asks: What does the team need now?
- It either does that itself or arranges for someone else to do it.
The mechanism is simple: in any shared work, some things fall through the cracks because no one feels responsible for them. Leadership closes these gaps.
Read closelyWhat the principle says – and what it doesn’t
Leadership means doing, or getting done, what the team needs and what would otherwise be left undone.
- Strictly speaking
- Leadership does not have to rest with one person. It can be shared or can shift from task to task.
- The statement does not say that leadership decides everything. It explains a moderate share of the differences between teams, not all of them.
- “Given equal talent” is a thought experiment. In reality, talent is never evenly distributed. Before-and-after stories about great bosses therefore prove little – we tend to attribute success and failure too much to the person at the top.
The signs3 signs that the principle is at work · 3 that it is missing
- Open issues quickly find someone to take care of them.
- The team knows who decides on which question.
- The leader regularly asks what is getting in the way of the work right now.
- Everyone waits for someone else to take the first step.
- The same problems sit on the list week after week.
- The leader constantly intervenes, but not where the team needs it.
The research6 sources: 2 theories, 2 meta-analyses, 1 primary study, 1 critique · 1939–2014 · with research limitations
- low
- moderate
- high
Moderate – the second half of the statement (leadership as a function) is theoretically strong and supported by meta-analyses; the first half (“given equal talent”) can hardly be tested as such.
- 1939Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lippitt & Ralph K. White
Experiment with boys’ groups: the same group behaves markedly differently under authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire leadership. Small sample; methodologically weak by today’s standards.
- 1985James R. Meindl, Sanford B. Ehrlich & Janet M. Dukerich
“Romance of leadership”: observers prefer to explain organizational outcomes in terms of leadership, especially when results are strikingly good or bad.
- 2001Stephen J. Zaccaro, Andrea L. Rittman & Michelle A. Marks
Functional leadership: the main task of leadership is to do, or get done, whatever the group needs that is not being adequately taken care of.
- 2010Frederick P. Morgeson, D. Scott DeRue & Elizabeth P. Karam
Leadership can come from four sources inside and outside the team. The authors describe 15 leadership functions that meet the team’s needs.
- The relationships between leadership behavior and team performance are moderate, not decisive on their own.
- Leadership does not have to rest with one person; shared leadership is independently related to team success.
- Because people like to credit success to the leader, individual stories such as that of Manchester United prove little.
Read more: what the research shows
Team research speaks of functional leadership. The idea is that leadership is judged by how well it meets the team’s needs. Stephen J. Zaccaro, Andrea L. Rittman and Michelle A. Marks describe leadership’s main task as doing, or getting done, whatever the group needs that is not being adequately taken care of. In their overview, Frederick P. Morgeson, D. Scott DeRue and Elizabeth P. Karam show that leadership can come from several sources inside and outside the team. A meta-analysis led by C. Shawn Burke finds moderate relationships between leadership behavior and team success. Danni Wang, David A. Waldman and Zhen Zhang show that shared leadership makes a contribution of its own.
The originJohn C. Maxwell · “The Law of the Edge”
- 2001OriginJohn C. Maxwell
The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork
- The Law of the EdgeWhen two teams are equally gifted, leadership makes the difference
- todaySharpened
Sharpened here is what leadership does – it provides what the team needs right now – and the point that it need not depend on one person.
The related team principles02 Direction · 04 Position · 13 Safety · 19 Scoreboard
Leadership makes other principles effective: “Direction”, “Position”, “Safety” and “Scoreboard”.
“Catalyst” is closely related, and “Development” is a reminder that what the team needs changes.
It stands in tension with “Dissent”: strong leadership can smother objections.
The action steps5 steps: At the start of each week, ask
- At the start of each week, ask: what does my team need most right now – information, a decision, resources or backing? Take care of that first.
- Pay attention to both: the task and the people. In the research, both are linked to team success.
- Hand over responsibility. Let team members make their own decisions and try new things. This is especially closely linked to how much a team learns.
- Distribute leadership tasks and name them clearly: who leads on which topic? In complex work, shared leadership pays off especially well.
- Examine yourself: do you invite dissent, or does your strength smother other people’s objections?
The questions for your team3 questions for your team conversation: What do we as a team need most right now – and who is taking care of it?
- What do we as a team need most right now – and who is taking care of it?
- Which tasks are left undone in our team because nobody feels responsible?
- On which topics should someone other than the team leader take the lead?
Take time for one question at your next team meeting. Talk about it openly and note down what you take away from it.
The picture to rememberTwo identical groups: the one on the left stays disorganized.
- Two identical groups: the one on the left stays disorganized.
- In the one on the right, a golden dot is always wherever something is missing at that moment – and the group reaches the goal.
What the Team Principle of Leadership looks like in practice
Same Masks, Different Leadership
In the late 1930s, Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lippitt and Ralph K. White have schoolboys in Iowa make theater masks in clubs of five. The task and the materials stay the same; only the style of leadership changes – authoritarian, democratic, later laissez-faire – and with it, the group’s behavior.
13 League Titles – and None Since
Alex Ferguson takes over Manchester United in 1986, with the club in 21st place, and wins thirteen league titles between 1993 and 2013. A year after he retires, the same club finishes seventh, and in more than a decade not a single league title follows.
An Orchestra Without a Conductor
Since 1972, New York’s Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has performed without a conductor, Carnegie Hall included. Having everyone decide everything proved too time-consuming – today, for each piece, a core group of section leaders, the “Core,” sets the tempo, character and bowings in advance.
