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The authors of this chapter point out that little scholarly attention has been given to leadership teams: groups of leaders who are brought together to ensure that certain necessary functions-establishing direction, creating structures and systems, engaging external resources-are fulfilled so that members can accomplish shared goals. Their analysis of leadership teams in two different settings (top management teams in for-profit businesses and teams of volunteer civic activist leaders) shows that teams of leaders often fall victim to four paradoxes that undermine their effectiveness: 1) Leadership teams are composed of powerful people, yet they tend to be underdesigned, underled, and underresourced; 2) membership on the team is important and coveted, but members often don't know who's on the team and don't want to come to meetings; 3) members are overburdened but tend to waste enormous amounts of time in team meetings; and 4) authority dynamics pervade leadership teams and complicate team processes, but members won't talk about them. The chapter concludes with a description of two competencies that can help leaders of leadership teams be more effective: understanding the team as a social system and developing their skills in the art of structuring. This chapter was originally published as Chapter 17 of 'Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice: A Harvard Business School Centennial Colloquium.' This chapter is excerpted from ‘Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice: A Harvard Business School Centennial Colloquium'.