I accept that he's polarizing to some, but Jocko Willinck's book "Extreme Ownership" has some interesting stories on this topic. One of them is at Navy Seal training camp, where there's 6 teams involved in a multi-stage boat race exercise. Half-way through, team 2 is destroying everyone and team 6 is losing pretty badly. So, to teach a leadership lesson, the instructors decide to switch the leaders from teams 2 and 6.
At the start, team 2 continues doing awesome, and while team 6 doesn't win, they improve. Next round Team 2 isn't doing quite as well, but still good. Team 6 has improved a bunch. After a couple of rounds, team 2 is falling apart and team 6 is now winning (or 2nd place, I forget).
My experience, admittedly anecdata, is that great teams perform well when they're in an environment where they're allowed to succeed. I've worked with great teams who did terrible work, and it was pretty much always due to a bad environment (e.g. an owner who would redirect their efforts every few days, so no feature ever got to done-done). I've also seen (but not personally led) teams that I had originally somewhat written off, who under good leadership managed to do some pretty damned impressive work.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not devaluing the potential contribution from a single amazing person, or a team full of amazing people. My clients hire me because I have a (locally) rare set of skills that their team doesn't have, and help them get over hurdles that their team can't (currently) tackle on their own. But if you take a great set of individuals and put them together in a shitty environment with a shitty leader, you're going to get what you get.
At the start, team 2 continues doing awesome, and while team 6 doesn't win, they improve. Next round Team 2 isn't doing quite as well, but still good. Team 6 has improved a bunch. After a couple of rounds, team 2 is falling apart and team 6 is now winning (or 2nd place, I forget).
My experience, admittedly anecdata, is that great teams perform well when they're in an environment where they're allowed to succeed. I've worked with great teams who did terrible work, and it was pretty much always due to a bad environment (e.g. an owner who would redirect their efforts every few days, so no feature ever got to done-done). I've also seen (but not personally led) teams that I had originally somewhat written off, who under good leadership managed to do some pretty damned impressive work.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not devaluing the potential contribution from a single amazing person, or a team full of amazing people. My clients hire me because I have a (locally) rare set of skills that their team doesn't have, and help them get over hurdles that their team can't (currently) tackle on their own. But if you take a great set of individuals and put them together in a shitty environment with a shitty leader, you're going to get what you get.