Leading a team is a distinct quality. It is a skill completely separate from those needed to achieve the team objective themselves.

All teams need leadership and the best teams are well led. The starting point is a formal team leader. The substance is a talented group of individuals. The goal is a cohesive team of leaders.

Look at the Ryder Cup. A Ryder Cup team is an extraordinary team. Here is a group of very successful individuals who have been acclaimed – and handsomely rewarded – for their individual success, for their complete sporting selfishness.

How do you take these inherently selfish people and mould an effective team ethos?

The key role is the captain’s, again a quite remarkable role. The captain, like his players, is someone who has thrived on individual performance.

Since each captain has always been a world-class player, he must – with no training, no track record as a leader, no rehearsal, no room for error – develop advanced leadership and team-building skills, in the high pressure cauldron of one of the most watched events in sport.

At the 2010 Ryder Cup, Colin Montgomerie took the helm as the European team captain. Leading the European team to a famous 14½ to 13½ victory against the US rivals and holders of the Cup.

His success started with his meticulous approach to team selection. It ended with his ability to know when to step back and let his players do what they did best: play golf.

‘I didn’t hit a shot out there. My players all played magnificently, all twelve of them.’ Colin Montgomerie

Selecting the team to win

Team selection for the Ryder Cup is a blend of automatic selection – nine players based on form – and the captain’s wildcard picks.

For his three wildcard choices, rather than sticking to the form books, Monty trusted his own instincts. He considered not simply their skill level, but how well players would perform under pressure, and how well they would function and perform as part of the team. This is where an intuitive understanding of human behaviour is essential.

Monty’s philosophy for selection had to go beyond pure golf, and consider how they would fit in with the nine automatic picks as friends, colleagues and partners - the cohesion of the team.

A number of potential team members for Monty’s European team had opted to play in a FedEx Cup tournament in Atlanta, a highly lucrative tournament but a non-ranking event for the European Tour.

Those who played in Europe in the less financially attractive but points-earning Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles demonstrated that they wanted to be on the Ryder Cup team. For them the cup and the team glory was more important than cash.

Monty took the view that having players who were all motivated by playing for Europe, motivated by the same goal, would be more effective than better form. He made the decision that passion and fit with the rest of the team were the critical criteria.

‘He was with every player and every player was with him. We didn’t want to let him down. We wanted to deliver for Monty.' - Padraig Harrington

Leading the team - developing leaders

With a committed and passionate team in place, Monty then set about creating a team of leaders. While many new team leaders often fall into the trap of trying to deliver their team’s objective single-handedly, or make the team clones of themselves, Monty recognized his role as team captain was different from that of a team member. He left his clubs at home - success had to come without hitting a ball.

Monty took the view that non-playing vice-captains helped syndicate, not threaten, his authority. He knew that having additional pairs of eyes out on the course would noticeably strengthen his team. He could not be everywhere at once, and his vice-captains both guaranteed support for players wherever and whenever it was needed and fed back a constant flow of information.

In addition to Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, Thomas Bjørn and Sergio García, Montgomerie even persuaded José María Olazábal to become a fifth vice-captain on the second day when the format, revised due to the rain delays, meant there were six matches on the course at the same time. Monty was happy to share the weight of leadership around to maximise returns.

Perhaps this is the toughest challenge for leaders; often promoted as a result of their individual success they tend to have high levels of confidence and self belief. Traits that, especially in champions, often border on arrogance and selfishness, are the opposite of what is required. Turning great individuals into a team demands that it is about the team and not about the leader.

In addition Monty used the pairings for the fourballs to encourage his players to step up to their leadership roles. This was especially evident in the pairings between rookie and experience, Ross Fisher’s play was inspired by his partner Padraig Harrington as they combined to beat Jim Furyk and Dustin Johnson on the seventeenth green.

‘It was an honour to have a three-time major champion reading my putts,’ said Fisher.

Where both players were experienced Monty sought to find pairings that would complement and amplify each others skills and temperament on the course. For the first time the European side had two brothers – Edoardo and Francesco Molinari – whose close and comfortable relationship helped them combine well.

‘I knew Francesco was quite shy,’ remembers Monty, ‘and so when Edoardo came into contention it helped deliver a perfect partnership for the fourballs and the foursomes.’

The Northern Irish duo of McIlroy and McDowell were good friends as well as countrymen. ‘They are friends but more importantly they respect and trust each other, and can rely on each other,’ said Monty.

Team mates become team leaders when they offer the support and inspiration that brings out the best in other players.

The wrong pairing could have an equally damaging effect as the failed combination of two stars, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, by Hal Sutton in 2004 demonstrated. They were the number 1 and 2 players in the world, but the only bond they had was a mutual dislike.

It was ‘a partnership that made Tom and Jerry look compatible’, wrote James Corrigan in the Independent. Even when Woods and Mickelson tried to relax in preparation for their pairing by playing each other at table tennis, their public attempt at ping-pong diplomacy only served to paper over the gaping cracks in their relationship.

Sure enough, they lost the first fourball on the opening morning (to Monty and Harrington), the United States lost that session by ½ to 3½ and the tone was set for an overall defeat. ‘Langer was the second-best captain Europe could ever have wished for,’ observed Monty. ‘Sutton being the first.’

Monty understood that, in the ideal team, all members would act as team leaders; they would all support, coach and inspire each other. In that sense the culture that Monty was promoting was one where team leadership became a task for all team members, not just for him.

Developing leaders across the team is developing a better team. The strongest teams are those in which more members inspire, support, challenge and hold each other accountable.

Select and empower

Monty’s purpose was clear and compelling: bring back the Ryder Cup. His role as leader was defined, from the outset, by the 14½ points required to clinch victory.

So Monty teaches us two valuable lessons about team leadership:

First, he selected the team to win not only based on competence, but also the imperative of team synergy - the whole must be greater than the sum of the parts.

Team selection must go beyond raw data, and consider the human and social elements of team dynamics.

Second, he empowered the team to become leaders in their own right. You have to leave your clubs at home and think about how you amplify your teams’ ability.

A team will perform at the highest levels when individual members also take up the mantle of leadership, when they share the leader’s capability and commitment to build a better team.

Developing leaders across the team is developing a better team.

See the Ryder Cup story here

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