In their book, The Wisdom of Teams, Jon Katzenback and Douglas Smith define team as “a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” In today’s world, whether teams are small or large, good teamwork is essential for businesses and organizations to be successful. A leader that can’t work well with a team will not be successful. Strong teams leverage the diverse perspectives, experience, skills, creativity and problem-solving approaches of their members synergistically to tackle challenges, produce results, and create a sense of satisfaction and achievement among their members as team members learn from each other and make progress toward their goals.

Team leaders are essential to set goals and objectives, provide guidance and direction, ensure that team members know and are fulfilling their roles, set the tone and pace for how the team will work together, monitor progress, resolve conflicts, ensure that team morale remains high and that team members are motivated to perform well, and that they have the necessary resources to do so. In addition, team leaders need to be aware of the stages of team development and how they can best support the team through these stages.

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