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It's a common mistake to call leaders a "team" when they function as a group, and the opportunity cost is significant, a behavioural scientist and leadership coach warns.

Stephanie Bown has "partnered with hundreds of teams who think they are a team, but really are working as a group", she says in her new book, Curious, Connected & Calm: How leaders are better together.

One assessment method she uses is to assign a problem-solving task that leaders complete individually, then collectively. Bown scores the team based on the solution itself, and how well members leveraged their collective wisdom – "or how close the team average score is to the 'best' individual score".

"If the team performs as well as the best individual in the team – i.e., if the team score matches the best individual score – they have performed well but not achieved synergy," she says...