Business leadership is recurrently being transformed and some of today’s leaders look quite different from those of yesterday in terms of how they do leadership. Today’s leadership is emerging from a time when leaders were autocratic and seen as repositories of knowledge and power. Their teams were followers who were seldom, if at all, given the opportunity to be innovative, autonomous or participative. Work commands flowed down from top to bottom in a hierarchical structure and work teams did whatever they were told to do. Leadership has changed in many ways and in recent times we have heard about the servant leader, the coach leader, and the collaborative leader, among others.
Stackfield’s Lena Wimmer writes about leading tomorrow’s company with today’s collaborative leadership approach, which embraces a flatter structure. Within this structure, strong leaders enable perfect collaboration within an empowered organisation. This form of leadership ensures that everyone is provided with the right tools and means of communication to work together harmoniously and achieve pertinent outcomes. There is no exercise of control by one leader who makes all decisions and hands them down to work teams. All employees are encouraged and given the opportunity to voice their opinions. In effect, they become a part of the decision-making process.
With collaborative leadership, there should be one common goal that everyone works towards. This is a shared vision that should unite team members in working towards its accomplishment. Relevant information should be made available to everyone and not kept hoarded by the leader. Feedback is essential and must be engendered, be it positive or negative. Positive feedback gives encouragement and negative feedback brings about positive change. Feedback should also be targeted at the leader who likewise has shortcomings that can be improved and virtues that deserve praise. Critical elements of a collaborative environment are autonomy, transparency, trust, motivation, understanding, patience and empathy, particularly when the leader leads across various locations.
Take the decisive step to become an effective collaborative leader by pursuing eCornell’s Performance Leadership program and stand out among your peers.
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