With the plethora of opinions that often accompanies a deliberation in a team, the leader’s role is to promote a culture of team work in such scenarios. Many leaders often assume that their team is expected to think in the same direction.

On the contrary, such team can never have an exceptional output. The beauty of a team is the differences in the perspectives of the individuals and the most successful teams are often those that harness diverse perspectives while maintaining unwavering commitment to shared objectives.

Exceptional leadership is building unity without uniformity. Outstanding teams aren't those where everyone thinks alike, rather, they are those where diverse thinkers commit alike to shared success. This represents one of leadership's most important insights: strength comes not from conformity but from committed diversity.

Promoting team work does not mean everyone will agree with the final opinion of the group however, everyone must be committed to it and there must be a mind dedicated towards that final decision. The commitment towards collective success even when individual viewpoints differ is what separates high-performing teams from those that merely function without friction.

In team work, there is no working in silos. There must be collaboration between team members for the cause of the overall objective. Working in silos leads to breakdown of cohesion amongst the team. It leads to weakening of trust in company's leadership and loss of motivation of staff members. Organizational silos represent one of the greatest threats to effective teamwork. When departments, teams, or individuals operate in isolation, pursuing their own objectives without regard for broader organizational goals, the entire enterprise suffers.

Tim Cook's leadership at Apple illustrates how to systematically break down silos while maintaining the company's innovative edge. When Cook succeeded Steve Jobs, Apple faced the challenge of scaling its collaborative culture across a much larger, more complex organization. Cook implemented cross-functional collaboration requirements for all major projects, ensuring that hardware, software, services, and marketing teams worked together from project inception rather than passing responsibilities sequentially.

This approach was tested during the development of the Apple Watch. This was Apple's first entirely new product category under Cook's leadership. Rather than allowing these differences to create silos, Cook established integrated project teams where representatives from each discipline worked together daily. This commitment to the overarching goal enabled teams to work through their differences productively rather than defensively.

Creating a culture where disagreement and commitment can coexist requires intentional leadership. Leaders must establish psychological safety for dissent while building mechanisms that ensure alignment once decisions are reached. During Microsoft's pivot to cloud-first computing, significant disagreements arose about resource allocation, product priorities, and strategic timing. Rather than suppressing these disagreements, Satya Nadella, the CEO, encouraged open debate while establishing clear decision-making processes.

He created forums where teams could voice concerns and challenge strategies, but once decisions were made, he expected complete commitment to execution. One notable example involved the decision to make Microsoft Office available on iOS and Android devices. The internal debates were vigorous, with compelling arguments on multiple sides. However, once Nadella and his leadership team decided to proceed, even the strongest internal opponents committed to making the cross-platform strategy successful.

Effective teamwork without universal agreement requires a foundation of trust. The team members must have trust in leadership's decision-making process, trust in colleagues' commitment to shared success, and trust that individual contributions are valued even when specific recommendations aren't adopted. Reed Hastings' leadership at Netflix demonstrates how to build this trust foundation systematically.

During Netflix's transition from DVD-by-mail to streaming, significant internal disagreements arose about timing, pricing, content strategy, and technology investments. Some executives argued for a more gradual transition to protect the profitable DVD business, while others pushed for aggressive streaming expansion despite short-term financial costs. Hastings encouraged these debates openly. However, he also established clear expectations: once decisions were made, everyone was expected to commit fully to execution, regardless of their initial position.

Finally, remember that your role as a leader isn't to eliminate disagreement. It is to channel disagreement towards better decisions and stronger team performance. When leaders master this balance, they will discover that teams united in purpose but diverse in perspective can achieve results that seemed impossible under either pure consensus or pure authority.

The path forward isn't through agreement, it's through commitment. Build that commitment intentionally, nurture it consistently, and watch as your team transforms from a collection of individuals into a multiplying force for organizational success. In the words of legendary basketball coach Phil Jackson, "The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." Your job as a leader is to ensure that this mutual strength flows not from unanimous thinking, but from unanimous commitment to shared excellence.

Oluwole Dada is the General Manager at SecureID Limited, Africa’s largest smart card manufacturing plant in Lagos, Nigeria.