How do you build extraordinary teams?

We ask too much of leadership

Consequently, most of our attention goes to whoever’s been put in charge. We hire managers, train them in leadership, and expect this to improve team performance. And yes, leadership matters — just not in the way most people think.

How do people collaborate when no one’s been put in charge?

That question has fascinated me for close to 20 years. I’ve studied how people lead and follow one another in natural settings, both through research and through practical experience as a manager in various roles.
As it turns out, in great teams it’s rarely one person who steers the others. Instead, the team tends to follow whoever they believe is best suited to move things forward — at that particular moment.

This is a very natural way of collaborating. In natural settings — among friends, say — the role of leader doesn’t belong to any one person. It shifts constantly, with different individuals leading depending on what the situation calls for.

This natural way of collaborating helps the group become more adaptable — better equipped to meet whatever comes next.

Start with followership

To understand why some teams work better than others, we have to begin with natural followership: the art of knowing who to follow and when. Only then can great leadership develop.

This may sound like a new idea. It isn’t. Collaboration like this is deeply rooted in our nature and it has carried human success for hundreds of thousands of years. It was here long before we invented managers, titles, organizations, and states.

Organizations undermine natural leadership and followership

The trouble is that many organizations unconsciously undermine this process. And they pay for it, because the best teams are usually the ones that manage to tap into the group’s natural leadership and followership.