In this example, how did you fail as a leader?

According to Alan Keith of Genentech, "Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen."

Your leader needs simply to share the glory of leading. with each of the other members.

A common example of group leadership that would work in your case: A team of people with diverse skills and from different organizations assemble to lead a project. A team structure can involve sharing power equally on all issues, but more commonly uses rotating leadership. As each team member has the opportunity to experience the elevated level of empowement, it energizers staff and feeds the cycle of success.

In the Team Structure you describe, leaders must demonstrate persistence, tenacity, determination and synergistic communication skills to bring out the same good qualities in their groups. Good leaders use their own inner mentors to energize their team and organizations and lead a team to acieve success.

These are things a good team leader must know how to do to begin the progress.

President Obama has sort of been facing this very situation almost since Day One of his presidency, and he began by letting each side voice their own ideas and opinions...result pretty much what you outlined above, and no completed health care/insurance reform plan yet passed into law. However, with input from the White House and a message of "keep working things out," the Democrats did succeed in getting a fairly decent bill passed in the House (not a single Republican vote) and an insurance-friendly (but not necessarily consumer-friendly) bill passed through the Senate (also without a single Republican vote)---both bills now rather stalled in committee undergoing Markup (consolidation process). The media added another element, some taking ad buys from lobbyists trying to block reform--buys that skewed the news toward corporations and away from President Obama's initiatives, so the impression began circulating that President Obama had "failed' as a leader, although many did not think so. The propaganda pushers latched onto the impression and began to exaggerate, calling President Obama's leadership "weak" and predicting he was now a "lame duck" after his first year in office (Faux News, i.e.), but he fooled people by accepting an invitation to the Republican retreat and addressed 140 right-wing (mostly) Republicans without a script, and took questions from his would-be opponents, all of whom are motivated to make him look bad as a Democrat so that they can score political points in the upcoming mid-term elections and hold onto their seats. This was similar in pattern to a video game where all the would-be opponents were slinging their arrows and stones with all their might and the President caught each one in mid-air and disposed of it with commonsense responses, using logic and reasoning, refuting those things that were false, being honest if he had to admit to error, and he succeeded in fascinating the media, who have now (except for Faux News) altered their opinions and their reports, assessing him to be a potentially GREAT leader.

What one tries to do in a situation such as you describe is to find the common ground---what, if anything, does everyone (or a clear majority) actually agree about? Make a list of any areas of agreement and then use these as the foundation (or talking points) for the discussions that follow. Get to know each member by name, and have them identify themselves and maybe make a brief statement about their background and/or their goal (as they perceive that goal) in the group setting. Refer to each group member by name when calling for input or ideas. Important for the leader (or facilitator): Have a clear picture in your own mind of the ultimate goal, and then lead the discussions in the direction of this goal. If the new members from different companies keep trying to push their product and you, the team leader, truly believe this product is not in the best interest of the task at hand, say so, but find a firm and friendly way of saying no, perhaps adding that this may be something to consider in the future and mention that you'd like to have a report from them, since they seem so adamant about the value of whatever it is they are pushing. Think of yourself as both a director and a stage manager of a play, clearly defining your role, and then proceed accordingly. There is nothing really wrong with letting all points of view be heard (or of letting the "play" unfold on its own for a while) even if this seems at times chaotic, but then someone has to step in and provide structure and direction---and this would be you, as leader. You keep the best ideas, shelve the worst, and put things into some sort of sequential order. How does that sound?

A lot of managers get tangled into daily routines and administration, forgetting their employees for hours and hours, or even days. Meetings take a lot of time. Always think, is this meeting making our company move forward? If no, drop it. Reading e-mail can easily take an entire day. I receive about 100 e-mails each day. I can spend my day reading e-mail. Answer e-mails by walking to your cubicle neighbor and talk. Or pick up the phone. And do not read e-mail the first 30 minutes. The first 30 minutes should be spent on employees. Schedule walk and talk time, where you walk out on the floor at least once a day. Create a follow up and evaluations talk once a month. It does wonders.