"A leadership team is a group of two or more people who lead organizations that represent diverse functions, geographies, or areas of expertise, and who are committed to collaboratively serving some significant organizational purpose for which they hold themselves mutually accountable," writes Lynda McDermott in "Developing High-Performance Leadership Teams."

Leadership teams face significant challenges because each team member often is used to having ultimate authority over his team. However, current business challenges may be nearly insurmountable without combining the expertise of several key leaders. McDermott offers these tips for launching leadership teams.

Establish a leadership team charter. Developing a common understanding of the group's purpose or reason for coming together provides direction for the team's members.

Create a leadership team vision. Once a group has agreed to its underlying direction, the group can look ahead and determine where it would like to take the organization, and in what timeframe. The vision is something that can inform and inspire the rest of the organization, so they can contribute to the company's success as well.

Develop leadership team goals and strategic initiatives. Another early step to launching the leadership team is to set measurable objectives that define the deliverables, develop an accountability matrix, and create a performance management review process.

These tips were taken from the September 2014 issue of TD at Work (formerly Infoline), "Developing High-Performance Leadership Teams."