3 Principles Every Leader Needs to Build Great Teams

In 1995, one of the greatest teams in all of sports history was about to show the world what they were made of.

Seventy-two wins. Only ten losses. A championship. A season so dominant that people still talk about it decades later.

The Chicago Bulls didn’t just win — they became the standard.

But what made that team world-class wasn’t just Michael Jordan’s greatness. It was Scottie Pippen’s versatility. Dennis Rodman’s relentless rebounding.

As Phil Jackson famously said, “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.”

The Bulls proved that greatness is never built on talent alone. It’s built when the right people commit to something bigger than themselves.

And at the heart of every great team is leadership.

The greatest leaders understand the principles of building world-class teams.

I’ve been a student of leadership for a long time now.

My leadership journey started nearly 15 years ago when I was young and had no idea what I was doing.

Now, I lead a team of a little over 50 staff and volunteers, and so naturally, I’ve spent a lot of time studying how great teams work.

Not only for my own benefit as a practitioner, but also because I find the topic absolutely fascinating.

Behind every story of greatness, there’s leadership.

Whether it’s the innovative teamwork behind Pixar’s storytelling, the world-renowned music of the Beatles, the 1980 US Olympic "Miracle on Ice" team, the dedicated collaboration behind NASA’s 1969 Apollo 11 mission, the Manhattan Project, America's “Founding Fathers,” the British War Cabinet, or Lincoln’s famous “Team of Rivals,” the greatest moments and accomplishments in history have been the result of great teams led by great leaders.

There’s something quite literally phenomenal about how a team operates, as in, it can go beyond what you think is possible.

For instance, you may be familiar with the classic oxen example.

A single ox can pull about 5,000 pounds.

Now, how much do you imagine two oxen yoked together can pull?

Well, if one can pull 5,000, you’d probably assume 10,000 pounds, right?

Wrong.

Two oxen can actually pull up to 15,000 pounds.

It doesn’t add up, does it?

But that’s the phenomenon we see all the time with teams.

It’s not addition, it’s multiplication.

With the right leadership, teams can pull way more weight than you might possibly imagine.

Now, I’ve been a pastor for a little over a decade, and I believe this is actually deeper than some surface-level concept.

This is deeply biblical.

You might be familiar with the old proverb that says, “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help… Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”

If you’ve spent any time at all studying the life and ministry of Jesus, you’ll get an absolute masterclass on how to lead people.

But you’ll also see how Jesus prioritized things like collaboration and team building.

He had his famous inner circle of disciples that he invested in.

That team went on to build the early church, which, again, if you’ve ever studied it, was explosive in growth like nothing we’ve ever seen, and it took an enormous amount of leadership training from Jesus himself to pull that off.

Over the years, as I continued to research this stuff, the leadership principles became increasingly clear.

The leadership framework was unmistakable.

Three things kept rising to the surface.

Three qualities kept showing up.

Three pillars of leadership that the greatest leaders held to.

I’m going to show them to you right now.

PILLAR 1: WHAT ARE YOU FIGHTING FOR?

November 19th, 1863, Lincoln stood before a divided nation in desperate need of leadership.

What could a leader say in the midst of such a great and heartbreaking civil war?

What words could cut through the hate and the hurt and bring restoration?

Lincoln went to the very grounds where the Battle of Gettysburg was fought four months earlier.

The same grounds where roughly 8,000 soldiers lost their lives.

Lincoln spoke, “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

That opening line alone reflects just how great a leader Lincoln really was.

With all of his wisdom, in the greatest hour of need, he brought the nation back to the mission.

THIS is why we’re here.

THIS is what we’re fighting for.

Fast forward 100 years, and another great leader stood before that same divided nation to remind them yet again of what they stand for.

He said, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”

People forget the mission, don’t they?

They stop seeing the vision.

They lose sight of their purpose and role.

They forget what they stand for.

A leader stands before the people and reminds them.

You may be familiar with the story of Moses in the Bible.

God tells Moses to free the slaves in Egypt, and Moses obeys.

A lot of people don’t fully understand how massive a historical event it was; some scholars estimate that it could have been anywhere from 2.5 to 3 million Israelite slaves at that time in Egypt.

It would have been an absolute economic tidal wave of unthinkable proportions.

Without getting into all the details, God helped Moses free the entire Israelite people through a miraculous turn of events.

It was one of the most incredible moments in all of human history.

After witnessing how God moved, the Israelites became fully convinced and united under God, pledging their undivided commitment to His vision for their lives.

Well, 40 years after the liberation from Egypt, that unity starts to take a turn.

Division and doubt begin to creep into the Israelite people.

So, what does Moses, as the leader, do?

He stands before the people and carefully and methodically reminds them of everything God did for them.

He riddles off story after story of how God showed up time and again.

He brings the people's focus right back to the mission.

THIS is why we’re here.

THIS is our purpose.

The greatest leaders start with the mission and never let people forget it.

This is the first pillar a leader establishes.

Let’s look at the second.

PILLAR 2: IMPROVE THE EXPERIENCE

The history of transportation is fascinating.

For many centuries, transportation depended mainly on wind, water, animals, and human strength. This changed dramatically during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. Steam engines powered trains and ships, making travel and trade faster and more reliable.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the automobile began to transform personal transportation.

But while cars were an amazing innovation, there was still a problem: They were too expensive.

A lot of people don’t realize that one of the greatest innovations in the history of transportation wasn’t a vehicle at all; it was how vehicles were made.

In 1913, Henry Ford and his team at the Ford Motor Company famously developed and popularized the modern moving assembly line.

Ford wanted to solve a major problem: cars were too expensive and took too long to build. His goal was to make the Model T affordable for ordinary families, not just the wealthy.

Ford’s team redesigned manufacturing so that each worker performed a specific task as the product moved down the line. Instead of workers moving from car to car, the car came to them. This simple but powerful change dramatically reduced production time, lowered costs, and made mass production possible on a scale the world had never seen before.

The impact went far beyond the factory floor. Products became more affordable, industries expanded, and modern manufacturing took shape. The assembly line created jobs, increased productivity, and changed expectations for how quickly and efficiently goods could be made.

But its importance was not only in speed. The assembly line showed the power of organization, teamwork, and continuous improvement. It proved that when people work within a shared system toward a common goal, they can create extraordinary progress.

It didn’t just change how cars were built — it changed what we previously thought was possible.

Ford had a mission to revolutionize the transportation industry, and he understood that he needed to improve the overall experience to see it become a reality.

Now, by experience, we could be talking about processes, systems, and strategy.

We could also be referring to things like creativity, technology, innovation, imagination, and so on.

If the mission is the “why,” then the experience is the “how.”

Leaders are constantly improving how they pursue the mission.

They’re constantly adapting and innovating.

They’re faithful to the mission yet ruthless with methodology.

The mission never changes, but the methods of achieving it are constantly changing.

PILLAR 3: FIGHT OFF THE WOLVES

My wife and I love watching this show called Farming Life.

It follows farmers in the UK, and it’s such a delightful aesthetic, and it’s fascinating to see how they manage their work.

I particularly like watching the shepherds.

They’ve got it down to an art form.

Sheep are obviously incredibly idiotic and frustrating, but these shepherds are incredible.

They know how to lead their sheep.

These days, they have all sorts of tools to help, but in the old days (or should I say ancient times), shepherds had a very simple tool.

You probably know what I’m talking about.

It was called a shepherd's crook, and it’s what I think most people imagine when they think of a shepherd.

It’s more or less a long staff with a hook at the end.

But this simple tool was incredibly helpful and had many features.

The hook was perfect for catching and rescuing livestock.

It was helpful for navigation, for parting thick undergrowth, and as a walking stick in rough terrain.

But another reason, if not the main reason, shepherds needed their shepherd's crook was in case any predator came sniffing around.

The shepherd was there to protect the sheep.

I mentioned that the life and teaching of Jesus are a masterclass in leadership.

Jesus actually brought up this very illustration.

He says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.”

I wish I had the time to break down the full significance of this, but here’s the headline I want you to take away.

A true leader dies to themselves to fight off the wolves.

In the world of business, you might call this “protecting the culture.”

But truthfully, it’s so much bigger and deeper than that.

This is about sacrifice.

It’s about selflessness.

It’s about leading from a place that’s willing to risk it all for the mission.

The leader believes in the mission so much that they are willing to lay down their life to protect it.

Now, if you’re thinking, “That’s kind of intense.”

Well, what’s your mission?

What are you fighting for?

Or a better question might be, “Is your mission worth fighting for?”

If not, sorry, your mission sucks.

Find a better one.

You need a mission so great that you’re willing to lay it all on the line to fight off the wolves.

And I think you already intuitively know what these wolves are, don’t you?

It’s the division and hate.

It’s the lies and deception.

It’s the conflict and passive aggression.

It’s the gossip and slander.

It’s the selfishness and ego.

It’s the fear and doubt.

It’s all of the things that undermine your chances of fulfilling the mission.

A leader steps in front of the enemy and stands ready to beat the snot out of the wolves if they dare come around.

And yes, a leader can expect to take some hits and hurts in the process.

As always, keep fighting the good fight.

And I’ll see you again real soon.