by Michelle Tuesday

Created on: December 04, 2009   Last Updated: May 08, 2010

Henry Ford. Mary Kay Ash. Giorgio Armani. Bill Gates. These names conjure images in your mind, images of wealth and success, and deservedly so. These company founders invested their innovation, time, and sweat into starting up some of the most profitable businesses of all time. But these individuals were strong leaders as well as innovators.

Can you imagine Bill Gates designing and implementing every single Microsoft operating system, software application, and component on his own? Microsoft would be a much smaller shop, one you would very likely have never heard of. But Microsoft is world-renowned, in a class all its own, and its founder Bill Gates is the wealthiest and possibly one of the most influential men alive today.

What sets Bill Gates apart from his contemporaries is the ability to lead a successful team. What started out as a two-man team, comprised of Gates and his friend Paul Allen developing BASIC for the very first personal computer, has grown into a multinational, multi-billion-dollar company made up of more than sixty thousand employees.

Bill Gates a hands-on, roll-your-sleeves-up techie. He developed his first products with his very own hands, as did Ford, Mary Kay, and Armani. But these founders recognized the value in teamwork. They were visionaries, imagining product lines and inventories that they could never accomplish in their garages. Instead of relying strictly on their own intellect and abilities, they added teams of employees to their arsenals, each with their own set of responsibilities.

Successful companies require intricately designed teams, each accountable for its own piece of the puzzle, and each interacting collaboratively and cohesively with the others. And teamwork where applies on a global scale, from marketing to research to manufacturing to distribution, it also applies on a local scale. In your immediate department, teamwork keeps all the gears turning. Even in a group whose function is specialized, the individual team members contribute to the whole group in his or her own unique way.

Effective leaders recognize the value of diversity among employees. Each employee offers his or her strengths, and effective teamwork relies on groups whose strengths complement one another. Effective leaders also recognize that an employee's strength can sometimes be his weakness. For instance, that employee with high initiative and drive for results can occasionally rub others the wrong way, because his expectations are unreasonably high.

As a leader, you want the go-getter on your team, but you have to coach him on his interpersonal skills. Good managers are successful coaches, because coaching in the business world develops strong teams much like coaching athletics does.

Effective teamwork in the workplace comes from effective leadership. Good leaders hire employees with complementary skill sets and coach them into teams that work well with one another. As a manager, you know you have done well developing your team when they become self-directed. Therefore, if your team no longer needs your guidance, this is a compliment! Congratulations on building your effective team.

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