When you’re the leader of a high functioning team, it’s not your job to lead, it’s your job to facilitate the work being done. It’s your job to reduce the friction of the work, to remove the barriers, and to make the desired changes easier. It’s your job to listen, to inquire, and to foster the right environment.

When you’ve got the right team, leadership is less about leading and more about supporting what the team needs done. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have input or that you can’t help guide towards the team’s vision, but if the team is truly great, you’ve got to be prepared to let others take the lead where they are capable, or getting more capable. Because if you aren’t sharing the leadership, then that awesome team can quickly become less awesome. Especially if the team members don’t see their own value, hear their own voices, and share the same vision and values.

An empowered team member on a great team is far more important that a team member who just follows your lead. This is probably why the hardest job as a leader is getting the right people on your team. And when someone isn’t a great team member, that’s when your leadership is most important. That’s when and where you really need to lead.