In choosing a leadership style, a foundation step is deciding how much authority to retain for yourself versus how much to hand over to the group. A completely boss centered leader holds on to most of the authority and makes most of the decisions alone. At the other extreme, a subordinate-centered turns over almost all decision-making authority to the group. A boss-centered leader is labeled as authoritarian or authoritative. A subordinate-centered leader is labeled as free rein. The participative leader falls into the middle of these two extremes; a participative leader share decision-making with group members. The same style is also referred to as participative/team.

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You can enhance group cohesiveness, and, therefore, team spirit and teamwork, when team members are located close together so they can interact frequently and easily. Frequent interaction often leads to camaderie and a feeling of belonging.

One way to achieve physical proximity is to establish a shared physical facility, such as a conference room, research library, beverage lounge, or company athletic facility. Create a temporary common work area in the office by rearranging cubicle walls and modular furniture; use office landscaping rather than offices with door as has become almost standard practice except for executives. Conduct brainstorming sessions in relatively small conference rooms. Visit a customer or company facility as a group, riding together in a company van or bus.

Idea-sharing is a heavy-duty tactic for developing team spirit and teamwork because the exchange of information requires a high level of cooperation. This are the following idea-sharing tips:

Show and tell. Reserve a portion of each group meeting for idea-sharing or information exchange. During this portion of the meeting, the members might also be encouraged to provide constructive feedback to each other.

Clip file. Maintain a mutual clipping service where group members send copies of highly relevant newspaper and magazine articles to each other periodically.

Book club. Start a team book club that meets about six times year. Each team member takes turn leading a discussion on a book he or she thinks is useful for improving group performance. The book could also enlightening in general ways, such as broadening the thinking of group members. Each member of the team is responsible for reading the book ahead of the meeting. Many companies use the book club idea as a training technique in such areas as leadership, quality improvement, and diversity.

Email action. Encourage team members to send their “best idea of the week” to each other via e-mail. At the same time, discourage team members from sending cyberspace filler. Most people receive more low-value e-mail messages than they can absorb.

Idea sharing can build also a team spirit which give harmony to the team members. And it also enhance for the creative thinking because intellectual stimulation is enhanced with members.