A Team Leader's Job

In my line of work I see and talk to a lot of people who are in the position of leading a group without having access to the rewards and punishments that formal managers can rely upon when needed. Whether these people are team leaders (who are formally given responsibility, but not given any real authority), team members or informal/emergent leaders who are leading their peers, or the leaders of relatively informal groups (e.g. leaders of non-profit groups, networking organizations, communities of practice, etc.) they all wrestle with defining their role as "leader". And they all deal with it in different ways.
However, the two biggest mistakes I see are when these informal group leaders try to either A) adopt a formal "command & control" style of leadership, or B) try to lead by always taking on the biggest, most difficult, and most complex tasks themselves.
Obviously, the first route (command & control) will begin to develop resentment among the members of your team. You're not officially their boss, why are you giving orders? And obviously, the second route (trying to do everything) will lead to burnout on the part of the leader and may well lead to important tasks not being completed properly or in a timely manner (overload on the part of the leader).
However, there is something that both of these mistakes have in common that is often overlooked. Both of these leadership strategies send the message that the other group members are not capable, and committed to the task.  If I am giving orders, it sends the message that you aren't capable of making decisions and knowing what is important; If I do everything myself, it sends the message that either you aren't capable of performing the complex task, or you are not committed enough to perform it properly. Either way, the other group members are being treated (usually unintentionally) as if they don't really have a brain.
So, how to lead then?
Remember that as a team leader (or a team manager), your top job is actually *not* to do everything related to the task. Certainly it is helpful if you have a general understanding of what needs to happen for the task to be completed properly, but you do *not* need to be the expert in the room on every part of it. Your job instead is to unleash the *collective* intelligence, skill, experience and ability that resides on the team. If only one brain was needed for the team's task, then you would simply be telling computers or robots what to do. However, you need creative, talented, thinking people on your team. Therefore your job as team leader is to stimulate them to perform at their best. And when you are making all the decisions and performing all the most complex tasks yourself, without their input, then you are sending the message that not only are their brains not needed, but that their thoughts are not wanted.
More on this soon....