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This paper was originally published in the Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Interdisciplinary Health Team Care Conference, which took place September 20-22, 1990 at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, Indiana.  It is reproduced here with the permission of the author.

Functional leadership is the primary means for an interdisciplinary health care team (IHT) to accomplish its work. It is leadership that is not assigned or mandated but is assumed by the team members (formal or informal leaders) who are best equipped to address a presenting problem.

This paper is based on a single case study of a team which is not directed by external leaders, which has gained national recognition as a model program, and which meets many of Vaill's (1984) criteria for a high performing system. This team has survived and remained innovative over a period of fourteen years with no externally appointed internal leaders. This paper addresses two questions: What does leadership look like in a long term IHT that is an innovative and high performing system; and how do new members learn the leadership roles that direct the ongoing development of an innovative IHT? Based on data that was gathered to answer those questions, this paper describes the leadership functions assumed by team members, the members' perceptions of their leadership roles, and how they learned to assume functional leadership roles for ongoing team innovation.