With the word of Steve Jobs’ medical leave from Apple well-traveled at this point, ten days after the news was announced, it’s time to take a look at what happened and what can be gleaned from this whole rigamarole. (Edit: SEC is now investigating his leave of absence.)

While the general consensus is now very conciliatory toward Jobs’ privacy, the knee-jerk reaction from many was, “What about my stocks/next-gen toys/updated version of Mac OS?” A bit selfish, to be sure, but with Jobs’ position and highly-lauded innovation talents, I can understand this. However, this sentiment didn’t decline with time, along with the level of interest in what was happening to Jobs. As Jobs himself says,

“Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well…In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.”

Fact is, guys, a solid and successful company does not rely on one person. This holds true whether the company is made up of 35,000 or three. For those of you who are part of a small team, you’re probably used to wearing a lot of different hats. A broad set of skills is a must for finding success in the small business market–but when one member falls out of the picture for whatever reason, what then?

Take the time to seriously consider this, from your perspective and the rest of the team: if you suddenly found yourself stranded on an island with no method of communication, what would be the impact to current projects, future endeavors, and internal processes? Your answers will help show you the areas lacking team talent overlap. For areas that wouldn’t be affected much by your absence, this is a sign that you need to focus on getting a handle on them–for what if it wasn’t you who were stranded, but the teammate most skilled in that area? Conversely, if you find that the company would be seriously set back on a project because you’re the only one the client has spoken with since day one, this should be a prime indicator that your company’s internal communications needs some work.

Key aspects to think about:

• What methods would your teammates have to access project-relevant files?
• Could communications with a client be picked up by another teammate fairly easily?
• Does your network consist of people who share the specializations you have (graphic design, coding, etc) who teammates could tap into during the interim?
• How would your responsibilities be shared or distributed among the other teammates?

Most important of all, does everyone on your team know the answers to these questions?

While Steve Jobs is Apple’s genius, he is most certainly not the only brick in the foundation that keeps the company steady. For small companies, we must strive to make our foundations solid as well, by strengthening the load we can carry.