Learning leadership and people skills is necessary to function properly within a team.  A team of people has tremendous power and potential if the participants are aligned in common purpose and dedicated to working toward the collective benefit of the group.  Something wonderful happens as individuals strive together for common achievement and accomplishment: camaraderie. 

As people work together, keeping their egos in check, working for the best ideas and holding back their own personal agendas while searching for an overall group agenda, momentum builds.  The relationships between the team members strengthens, and the production, ideas, and results are greater than the sum of the individual efforts.  As McDonald's founder Ray Kroc said, "None of us is as good as all of us."

The challenge with many people is being able to work within a team.  They lack in the required people skills, confidence, or patience.  They have to have their way, or see their own idea advanced, and become a disruption to the healthy functioning of the team as their position predominates.  After a while, they are either rejected from the team's activities, shunned, or the team becomes their personal dogmatic domain and fails to function as a synergistic group anymore.  Another type of behavior destructive to teams is private conversations, gossip, or people too cowardly to address issues directly and publically with the team or its members.  Instead, they go around behind the scenes voicing their dissent and stirring up "discord among the bretheren."  Political "factions" develop, feelings are hurt, and unhealthy competition for power, position, or prestige within the team develops.  Again, under these conditions a team deteriorates and loses out on the powers of combined efforts. 

I have been involved with both types of teams: those that function well and those that don't.  The difference in the results between the two are not even in the same hemisphere.  What made that difference was the people involved.  Selfless, motivated, humble, energized, patient, caring people make the best teams.  Often, unfortunately, one bad apple can spoil to whole mix.  It only takes a little bit of arsenic to spoil a cake. 

If you are fortunate enough to be involved in a team setting in some aspect of your life, strive to be the best teammate you can.  Be a contributor, not a detractor.  Deal open handedly, not behind the scenes.  Mean what you say and say what you mean.  Listen, and appreciate the differences that others bring to the group.  Be willing to change your opinion about something if presented with new information.  A quote I recently heard said, "The world belongs to those who are willing to change their mind when presented with new facts."  I can't tell you how many times I have gone into a team situation with a certain idea of what should be done or accomplished, but after hearing the great ideas and inputs of others, became convinced that my idea was not the best.  Many times, I became convinced that my idea wasn't even any good!  Sometimes my ideas have carried, but more often than not some amalgamation of everybody's ideas became the BEST idea.  These situations are fun, energizing, and rewarding. 

Working as part of a team can be one of the best experiences people can have, or it can be among the worst.  The only part of the experience you can control is your own contribution and behavior.  Be a team player, and get ready for some rich experiences, and don't be surprised if at some point along the way you are called upon to take the lead !