When does a team stop being a team? It's a "problem" that coaches encounter regularly, because they're constantly juggling internal competition for places with the desire for effective collaboration among team members.Too much competition is destructive because it undermines security and creates anxiety and tension, whereas the absence of competition creates complacency and apathy. Neither situation helps performance, and the art of leadership is managing the trade-off between these extremes.Questions around this "competitive collaboration" will feature prominently now that Super rugby is nearing completion, and the Springbok squad begins its World Cup campaign.Rivals of the last six months are suddenly teammates, but with the twist of competing for places in the starting XV. This was played out in 2011, when Peter de Villiers faced a choice between John Smit (leadership) and Bismarck du Plessis (performance), with, if reports are to be believed, real tensions as a result of his choice.The fishbowl of sport illustrates certain characteristics that make this tension more easily manageable. Imagine for a moment that you work for a small company of 30 people, and the CEO announces that financial pressure is forcing a "cull" of nine jobs. Ten people can apply for one newly created position. One will succeed, so nine people know that one person's gain is their loss, and this is all played out publicly among colleagues. It would quickly become a toxic situation, because people who are meant to pull in the same direction to achieve effective performance suddenly see their "allies" as rivals - a zero-sum scramble for one place at the expense of colleagues.In sport, coaches juggle a similar trade-off between having players compete for a single place, while still asking them to co-exist harmoniously with "rivals". Heyneke Meyer, for instance, has a choice of about seven flyhalves for his preliminary World Cup squad, and from the two or three he selects to travel to the UK, only one will run out, we hope, on to the Twickenham turf on October 31 for the final.Three factors make this juggling act possible. First, a player who makes the squad is still a valuable cog in the machine.Second, performance is transparently measurable, and that's not to say there is not a subjective component, but if the "job requirements" are clear, then a mature team can absorb competition without second-guessing one another.The final advantage is that sports teams can more easily create purpose and culture. I once heard a US army general say that the most important thing for leaders to provide to team members is a sense of purpose bigger than themselves.His attitude is that the larger purpose is the critical success factor for teams, and that a failure of teams is a failure of leadership.The Springbok, the source of much controversy last week because of its small size on our World Cup jersey, comes with a historical purpose and culture. Every player in the squad will express this, from the superstar who will play almost every minute, to the backup who might only play 20 minutes in a dead rubber, but whose role is as important, away from the cameras, in training, in team meetings, in hotels.Meyer, as the leader, and this Springbok squad will have to craft their own version of that vision, purpose and culture, and seek the competitive collaboration it creates...