1.     “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams

2.     “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” — Warren Bennis

3.     “You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” –Ken Kesey

4.     “Leadership is all about people. It is not about organizations. It is not about plans. It is not about strategies. It is all about people-motivating people to get the job done. You have to be people-centered.” — Colin Powell

5.     “A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” — Max Lucado

6.     “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.” — Andrew Carnegie

7.     “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” — Sam Walton

8.     “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” — Jim Rohn

9.     “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.”– Norman Schwarzkopf

10.  “Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.” — Publilius Syrus

11.  “Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity.”– Reed Markham

12.  7. “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” — Ronald Reagan

13.  “To add value to others, one must first value others.” — John Maxwell

14.  “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.” — Douglas MacArthur

15.  “There are no office hours for leaders.” — Cardinal J. Gibbons

16.  “I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through–then follow through.” — Edward Rickenbacker

17.  “One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” — Arnold Glasow

18.  “I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.” –Herbert Swope

19.  “True leadership lies in guiding others to success–in ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.” — Bill Owens

20.  “Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50 percent of your time in leading yourself–your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20 percent leading those with authority over you and 15 percent leading your peers.” — Dee Hock

21.  “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” — Harvey S. Firestone

22.  “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right thing.” — Peter F. Drucker

23.  “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” — Ralph Nader

24.  “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” — Warren G. Bennis

25.  “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” — Peter F. Drucker

26.  “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” — John Maxwell

27.  “Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” — Brian Tracy

28.  “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.” — Brian Tracy

29.  “You manage things; you lead people.” — Grace Murray Hopper

30.  “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” — John C. Maxwell

31.  “People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.” — John C. Maxwell

32.  “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” — Jack Welch

33.  “Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” — Peter F. Drucker

34.  “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” — John F. Kennedy

35.  “The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.” — Carlos Ghosn

36.  “Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.” — Pete Hoekstra

37.  “All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” — John Kenneth Galbraith

38.  “The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” — John Buchan

39.  “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” — Colin Powell

40.  Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not ‘making friends and influencing people,’ that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” — Peter F. Drucker

41.  “Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths.” — John Zenger

42.  “The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

43.  “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” — Bill Gates

44.  “Leadership is an action, not a position.” — Donald McGannon

45.  “Good leaders set vision, missions, and goals. Great leaders inspire every follower at every level to internalize their purpose, and to understand that their purpose goes far beyond the mere details of their job. When everyone is united in purpose, a positive purpose that serves not only the organization but also, hopefully, the world beyond it, you have a winning team.” — Colin Powell

Every small business starts with limited capital and resources. Initially, the CEO is trying to accomplish multiple tasks to avoid hiring excessive labor. As the company develops, the labor force increases and the CEO is forced to delegate tasks and create teams to organize his company and its departments in order to make optimum use of his labor resources.

A team of business people contains a number of professional who may have complimentary or similar set of skills needed to achieve and complete various business related tasks. There is usually a single team leader in every team and the team as a whole, is often held responsible for its performance, goals, and achieved targets.

Teamwork can often benefit a developing business greatly as better organization and task delegation becomes possible. The CEO is then responsible for managing the company as a whole and communicating with various team leaders to run the company efficiently. Being part of a team can also improve morale of the employees as they will get a sense of belonging and within every team, the opinion of each individual will be heard and taken into consideration, giving them due importance and a listening ear.

Steps to Building a Team

In order to build a successful team, a CEO needs to keep the following steps in mind:

1.    Have a Purpose

If you are creating a team of leaders, you need to have a clear and defined purpose that you want the team to achieve. Whether the team is created solely for the completion of a difficult project or whether it will be assigned a particular department of the company to manage on its own, a team must have its goals to achieve.

2.    Select Team Members

Each person included in the team should be able to contribute something to it. Make your selection carefully and choose people that can enhance each other’s performance and have complementary skill sets so that they can work well and achieve the team goals collectively.

3.    Pick a Leader

Designate a team leader yourself or ask the members to vote for one from amongst themselves. This leader will be responsible for team performance and will report to you directly.

4.    Delegate Tasks

Task delegation is important for a smoothly working team. As the owner of your business, you can choose to take this job on your shoulders or ask the team leader to assign responsibilities to each team member according to their skills and strengths.

5.    Discuss Problems

Meet with the team leaders frequently to discuss developments and progress. Furthermore, schedule meetings with the entire team once in a while, to discuss any problems or obstacles that they might be facing. Tackle these effectively.

6.    Set Deadlines

No matter how small scale your business might be. There must be a completion date and deadline for even the smallest of projects this will improve efficiency of your company as the work will always get done on time.

7.    Evaluate Performance

The CEO does not need to handle each team personally, but he or she does have to oversee the business and working of the teams. Evaluate the performance of every team from time to time. If a team is lacking efficiency, discover the reasons and sort out the problems to optimize their work.

Using these seven small steps, a CEO of a business can develop a team of employees into a successful working unit. Now, the question arises, what is a successful team or how can a team’s success be determined?

Characteristics of an Efficient and Successful Team

To better understand a team’s success, you need to evaluate it on the basis of its characteristics as well as performance. Every successful team will have these defining characteristics:

• Good Understanding of the Goals to be Achieved

A team that is working towards progress will have a clear concept of the goals that they are supposed to reach.

• Striving to Achieve Common Aims

The awareness that each person on the team is working for the same aim is a strong motivator for its members.

• Working Together with Coordination and Collaboration

Coordinating efforts and working together as a single unit to bring a project to completion is the biggest indicator of a successful team.

Importance of Building a Team of Leaders

Some CEOs feel that task delegation and team building often take the control of the company out of their hands. However, in most cases, building teams of efficient employees that can help one another and balance each other’s skills, is an important part of developing a business further. A few key reasons for team building include:

a)   Wide Range of Opinions

A group of employees that are combined together in a team often have different strengths and expertise. Accordingly, they will have different and varied opinions regarding a single project. More qualified and more experienced personnel might be able to give better and more implementable solutions as compared to others who are not experts in the field. Hence, when the team meets to discuss its plan of action, a diversity of views can actually improve the means by which a particular goal is achieved.

b)   Proper Representation of the Whole Company

For a company meeting, one member or leader from each team can be asked to attend and share their views. If the entire staff is divided into small manageable teams, each standing for a particular department of the company, a proper representation of the corporation can be made without inviting the whole labor force.

c)    More Eyes to Note Important Details

When a team is assigned a task, every individual member studies its details and often, one person can catch minute errors or key points that others have missed. Hence, having more eyes going over project details allows for more efficiency and accuracy in work.

d)   Continuous Progress in the Absence of Team Members

A team is build up of many members and each is delegated a specific task according to their skills. As a result, the team does not come to a standstill because of the absence of one or more members. The present employees are aware of the work that they have been assigned and can continue to work on it even if their colleagues are unavailable. This allows work to continue smoothly without interruptions.

Considering the importance of building a team, every CEO should strive to achieve it, as task delegation and management are qualities of a true leader and can help you in making big decisions for your company by consulting your teams and team leaders.