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Cyclists at this year’s Tour de France proved you don’t have to be the “leader” to dazzle people with your leadership skills.

Teammates on one team acted like leaders when they helped propel one of their fellow cyclists to win six stages of the race.

In every stage, including the final dash along the Champs-Élysées, Mark Cavendish was paced by teammate George Hincapie, who would sprint to the lead with a kilometer to go and shield Cavendish from the wind. Then, with a few hundred meters to go, another teammate, Mark Renshaw, would overtake the tiring Hincapie and set up Cavendish for the final sprint. When Cavendish finally burst to the lead with scant meters to go, he was fresh.

Put another way, both Hincapie and Renshaw sacrificed their own personal chances of winning in order to propel the team, and Cavendish had nothing but lavish praise for them both.

Outstanding teamwork, outstanding leadership.

— Adapted from “Leadership Lessons From The Tour De France,” Rich Karlgaard, Forbes.