It is impossible to overestimate the importance of a team approach. First, both the complexity and the velocity of business today, which, for any business on the Internet, is, at once, technical, global and 24/7, carried out in a couple of dozen different time zones, have eclipsed one person's ability to control it all. A leader must rely on his team. He must also seek answers, feedback, collaboration and leadership in others, to be infused into his own leadership.

Depending on your disposition and training, to be a leader is either a natural, almost effortless role or a daunting and impossible task. To be both a leader and the person whose vision and actions mold a team-- to become both a team leader and a team player at the same time-- is a challenge of the highest order, but one which can make or break your company.

To Be A Leader You Must Both Inspire and Rely on Followers

The first demand of a leader is to take charge and establish the objective. When John F. Kennedy established the objective that the United States of America would put a man on the moon within the decade, he inspired and led us. He did not sit down and design the spaceship which would carry the astronauts, weld it together, fire up the engines or create a process to allow foods to be consumed in a weightless environment. For all of that and the myriad thousands of details and processes, large and small, he relied on teams of people in the government, in large defense organizations; he relied on Congress to appropriate the money, on the public to support the program and on the technicians and personnel at NASA, down to the people who drove the trucks and cleaned the spotless cabins and helped the crew don their space gear. Each and every man and woman who was involved in the mission was an integral piece of it and responsible, in part, for its success.

Most projects, whether large or small, require teamwork.

The Communication Imperative

Think of any compelling leader, however controversial, from Winston Churchill to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Joan of Arc to Representative Barbara Jordan, and ask yourself what it was about him that transfixed you, captured your attention or shaped your actions.

Great leaders have only one thing in common: the ability to communicate their vision so clearly, with such feeling, that many are moved to follow it. The same is true of ordinary leaders, like heads of business. And those who aspire to be heads of business or even to rise through the ranks, must learn, on the most basic level, how to communicate.

The Ability And Willingness To Act Boldly and Decisively

Leaders learn to "spend" their popularity to accomplish their goals. A 65% popularity rating is akin to a landslide. So leaders learn to accept that about half the people won't like the course they're pursuing, no matter what it is. They simply proceed, doing as best they can, what they think is right, not worrying too much about stepping on any toes. Leaders learn that harmony comes not from keeping quiet and avoiding communication but as a positive achievement, from putting differences on the table and working through them.

Leaders choose to be bold and decisive and dominate the situation. And at the same time, a delicate balance is required: leaders must use all the skills they possess to inspire and lead a team, and but they must never lose sight of the fact that they themselves are a member of the team, subject to its rules and dynamics, responsible for its short falls as well as its successes.

The Importance of Assembling And Working Together As A Team

Even if you're not the president seeking to ignite the imagination of the nation and put a man on the moon, even if you're a smallish company with modest desires, like surviving the dot com maelstrom and maybe someday reaching the 401 K stage, you must still lead a team. Make it a good one.

When you go through the process of hiring people, you should remember you are putting together the intellectual capital which will form your company. This is the area that investors, bankers, analysts and the public will look at when attempting to decide how capable your company is, and how much money, or confidence they should invest in it.

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of a team approach. First, both the complexity and the velocity of business today, which, for any business on the Internet, is, at once, technical, global and 24/7, carried out in a couple of dozen different time zones, have eclipsed one person's ability to control it all. A leader must rely on his team. He must also seek answers, feedback, collaboration and leadership in others, to be infused into his own leadership.

More starkly, any one person could be run over by a bus, heaven forbid. Or stuck in an elevator between floors in a power shortage when decisions must be made, emergency generators must be cranked up, juice must flow, somehow. Or a crisis could strike, and a genuine crisis usually outstrips one person's ability to solve it because it must be viewed from many angles and may have many components. And speed counts.

Inspiration and Cohesiveness

Leaders inspire by articulating and evoking a vision of a goal everyone in the organization wants to work to achieve. Individuals may differ on how to achieve a particular goal, but in successful organizatons, a leader is able to inspire consensus on the goal. Shared goals in organizations, where people are encouraged to "buy into" and "own" the vision, foster greater teamwork and cohesiveness.

Research has proven that teams produce better results than individuals, even geniuses. Teamwork maximizes individual strengths and compensates for weaknesses. Cohesive groups also outperfrom groups which lack cohesion with more talented members coaching the less talented, and all pulling together for the common good, rather than individual glory, a more successful approach to achieving group goals.

Lead By Example

If you aspire to be a leader, it is you who must take the initiative and lead the charge. You be the one to burn the midnight oil; you be the one to test the new system, to take responsibility for the corporate decisions. If this crop of decisions doesn't seem to be working, either make them work or get them ditched. You take the lead and your team will follow, and within that delicate balance, both you and your team will assure success.