I have been researching and applying responsible leadership, teamwork, and change for 26 years all over the world, and I often get asked the same questions.

This is the second post of a 5-part series in which I address the most basic, and the more involved, questions that I’m frequently asked about teams, teamwork, and leadership.

In my first post, I already answered these questions:

1. What is a team?
2. What are the basic principles of teamwork?
3. Are there different types of teams?
4. How is a team different than a group?

Here are my answers to the following questions:

5. Who can be on a team?
6. How does a team form?
7. Why is trust important to teams?
8. Can one person make a difference on a team?

5. Who can be on a team?

Anyone. At anytime. For any length of time. If your family agrees to work together on Saturday to clean the house with the condition that no one is finished until the house is clean, then that shared outcome and commitment has the potential to make you into a team for that initiative.

6. How does a team form?

A team forms when a group of people care about a shared outcome and perceive themselves responsible to each other for accomplishing it. You can be assigned to join a group, but the process of a group becoming a team is always informal, natural, emergent, and voluntary.

7. Why is trust important to teams?

Since personal contributions and rewards occur at different times but are interdependent on what others do, trust provides the confidence that both investments and outcomes will be fair.

8. Can one person make a difference on a team?

Adding or removing one individual can change team dynamics greatly. This is a chief reason why the Leadership Gift teaches that teamwork is an individual skill set.

Check back (or subscribe) for additional blog posts that answer these questions:

9. What is leadership?
10. Who can exhibit leadership?
11. Should teams have an assigned leader?
12. Shouldn’t the technical expert be designated as the team leader?

13. What is the difference between “leadership” and “leader?”
14. How is a leader different than a manager?
15. How do I start a team correctly?
16. How do I get someone to do what he or she agreed to?

17. How do I get someone to trust me?
18. How do I get meetings to start on time?
19. How do I work with someone who doesn’t believe in teams?
20. How do I motivate someone who doesn’t report to me?

Christopher Avery, PhD, is a recognized authority on how individual and shared responsibility works in the mind and an advisor to leaders worldwide. For more on topics discussed in this post, consider his executive report Responsible Change, and download the Responsibility Process™ poster PDF in a more than a dozen languages. CEO’s desiring a culture of ownership may want to investigate the proven Managed Leadership Gift Adoption program.