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The folks at the esteemed Leader to Leader Institute publish a quarterly journal called, not surprisingly, Leader to Leader. What is surprising is that they saw fit to ask me to write an essay on what it means to lead in a world where nobody alone is as smart as everybody together.

Well, the Summer 2011 issue out, and it includes my essay. You can read it on the Web here.

I’m pleased, although not surprised, by the incredible wave of reactions to and comments about my post, “Great People Are Overrated.” (I’m also not surprised by the vitriol and personal nature of some of the barbs aimed at me—that seems to go with the territory whenever you question an article of faith among the Web startup crowd.)

My guess is that the post touched a nerve because it touched on one of the great dividing lines in our business culture today. As members of an economy, a society, and a collection of companies, all of us are engaged in a conversation (sometimes explicit, mainly implicit) about what makes the world go ‘round—individual brilliance or group genius, self-possessed superstars or well-rounded teams.

This is not a strictly either-or choice, of course. Even the best groups have stars, and not all stars find it hard to work well with others. But there remains the question of balance, priorities, even business mythology. If we’re building a company, what sorts of people do we want to recruit? If we’re paying our people, what sorts of contributions and behaviors do we wish to reward? If we’re thinking about our country and society, what kind of outcomes are we comfortable with, in terms of wealth and income distribution? Ultimately, are we fielding a team, or assembling a collection of individuals?

To get a sense of my answers to those questions, check out my new post on HBR, “Great People Are Overrated (Part II).”

Last month, in an article in the New York Times on the ever-escalating “war for talent” in Silicon Valley, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a passing comment that has become the entrepreneurial equivalent of a verbal tick—something that’s said all the time, almost without thinking. “Someone who is exceptional in their role is not just a little better that someone who is pretty good,” he argued when asked why he was willing to pay $47 million to acquire FriendFeed, a price that translated to about $4 million per employee. “They are 100 times better.”

Zuckerberg’s casual calculation reminded me of a conversation with Marc Andreessen, the legendary cofounder of Netscape, and now one of Silicon Valley’s most high-profile venture capitalists. “The gap between what a highly productive person can do and what an average person can do is getting bigger and bigger,” he told Polly LaBarre and me for our book, Mavericks at Work. “Five great programmers can completely outperform a thousand mediocre programmers…”

Now, I admire what Mark Zuckerberg has built, and I consider Marc Andreessen without peer as an entrepreneur and a thinker, but do we take seriously what these two Silicon Valley giants claim about talent? If you are building a company, would you prefer one standout person over one hundred pretty good people? If you were launching a technology or developing a product, would you rather have five great engineers rather than one thousand average engineers?

Have we become so culturally invested in the allure of the Free Agent, the lone wolf, the techno-rebel with a cause, that we are prepared to shower millions of dollars (maybe tens of millions) on a small number of superstars rather than a well-assembled team that may not dazzle with individual brilliance, but overwhelms with collective capability?

Check out my answers in my latest blog post for HBR. Join the discussion!

My latest blog post over at HBR builds on a great column by David Brooks of the New York Times, who argues against the culture of self-fulfillment and personal happiness. The challenge, he writes, is not to “find yourself” but to “lose yourself”–in a cause that matters or a company in which you believe.

I’m with Brooks! You can read my take at Harvard Business Review Online.

Everywhere you look, there’s compelling evidence that the single-minded pursuit of wealth often leads smart people to do incredibly stupid things—things that destroy that which money can’t buy.

Last week, the big story was the conviction of Raj Rajaratnam on 14 counts of insider trading, a greed-driven scheme that will lead to obliterated reputations, long prison terms (or both), for senior leaders at IBM, McKinsey, and other blue-chip institutions.

A few weeks before that, the big story, according to popular Motley Fool Rule Breakers review, was the resignation and humiliation of Berkshire Hathaway’s David Sokol, the likely successor to CEO Warren Buffet, undone by his eagerness to cash suspiciously timed investments in the stock of a company Berkshire later bought.

And next week on HBO we get to see the made-for-TV adaptation of the bestseller Too Big to Fail, a blow-by-blow chronicle of the subprime-mortgage fiasco—an exercise in collective greed that came pretty close to destroying the world as we know it.

Every time I read or see these sorry dispatches, I ask myself the same questions. How is it that brilliant people with more money than they’ll ever need allow their hunger for even more money to cause them to lose everything? How much is enough, and why are people willing to risk so much to get more? And if money is so alluring, how is it that so many people of great wealth also seem so unhappy?

My latest post at HBR tries to answer those questions. You can read it here.

If there’s one message I have stressed more than any other over the last few years, it is that it is not good enough to be pretty good at everything. The most successful companies, products, and brands have figured out how to become the most of something—not just adequate, but downright amazing.

If there’s one pushback I’ve received more than any other over the last few years, it is that I am setting an unreasonably high bar. “We’re not cutting-edge like Google or Facebook, our company is old-fashioned,” some executives reply. “This is not a glamorous business,” others protest, “don’t expect us to be like Apple or Nike.

To which I say, that’s a cop-out. I don’t care what field you’re in or what kind of company you work for. It is possible to transform anything you do from adequate to amazing—if you think hard enough about what amazing means in your field, and creatively enough about how to stand out from the crowd.

In my latest post for HBR, I offers some ideas about how to go from adequate to amazing.

Well, not quite, but close. The folks at Life Time Fitness are so enthusiastic about Practically Radical that they are selling the book in the cafes at their 90 clubs in 20 states. Now, they have produced a wonderful video that airs via video screens on the treadmills, exercise bikes, and elliptical equipment at their clubs. More than a million Life Time Fitness members can work out their minds even as they work off some calories.

You can check out the video here. Feel the burn!!!!

By my reckoning, Ben Horowitz is the most thought-provoking blogger on leadership and strategy today. He’s also a lot more than a blogger.  As one of the two name partners at Andreessen Horowitz, he is one of the most influential venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. As the cofounder and longtime CEO of Opsware, a software company that was sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion, he’s got a great track record as a hands-on executive. And as one of the earliest product managers at Netscape, he was present at the creation of first the dotcom boom.

No wonder that when Ben Horowitz writes what he thinks—about leadership, strategy, or innovation—people like me pay attention. Well, ten days or so ago, he wrote something that struck me as particularly insightful. He distinguished between business leaders who excel during periods of “peace”–times when the economy is growing, companies are innovating, and new ideas are blooming–and periods of “war”–when opportunities are shrinking, and flawless execution trumps open-minded creativity.

I riffed on Ben’s distinction for HBR. Here’s my take–join the debate!

My latest blog post for Harvard Business Review applies a bunch of insights we first published in Fast Company a dozen years ago to address the “battle for talent” raging today in Silicon Valley, in Boston, and in other high-tech centers around the country. Everything old really is new again–including the best way to find, evaluate, and recruit superstart talent. You can read the post here.