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SNAPSHOT
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Are
collaboration and leadership mutually exclusive in a
team setting? Not necessarily, and definitely not on
high-performance teams.
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Collaborative Team Leadership
“Collaborative Team Leadership” is excerpted
from an article (2002) by Innolect Associate Peter Norlin. For more
of Peter’s insights on Leadership, see “ The
Inner Life of Leadership . . .”
Teams work best when team members share both mutual accountability and leadership responsibilities. The challenge of team leadership, however, even when there is a formally designated “team leader,” is to collaborate in the leadership process.
Since leadership and collaboration are often presented and experienced as opposing dynamics, most people have no frame of reference for collaborative team leadership. However, this shared, interdependent style of “taking the lead” and then “handing it off” must be used by team members if they are intent on high performance, productivity and success.
Collaborative team leadership is built on three key assumptions:
- Effective collaboration requires strong, individual leadership. Personal leadership skills are a prerequisite for effective team performance, and people will never be able to work successfully in teams if leaders at all levels do not model collaboration.
- Mutual
accountability depends on individual accountability. Team
members can't meet shared goals if they can’t fulfill their own
personal responsibilities.
- A team can maintain control only by sharing control. If team members struggle to distraction and compete against one another to “win,” they will all lose.
To master collaborative leadership, team members must think beyond their past experience and expectations. Collaborative team leadership suggests that in a mutually-accountable, interdependent work environment, a team member must be able to take a calm, clear personal position and use personal influence in precise, focused, yet flexible ways.
As leadership roles shift around task requirements, team members
must be able both to take and share the lead in a fluid manner.
To communicate such reciprocal respect and support, they must also
develop sophisticated awareness of group process and other skill
sets, including:
- Understand
values and behaviors required in a collaborative team environment;
- Recognize
and seize opportunities to both lead and follow; and
- Develop
skills to move comfortably and successfully into either role.
Collaborative team leadership
is best learned and built as a team is chartered and begins work
together. A team needs to develop the capacity to collaborate
as leaders while fulfilling the team charter. Progress in developing
this capacity will be visible in the effectiveness with which members:
- Make
decisions;
- Manage
disagreements and conflict;
- Craft
agreements;
- Solve
problems;
- Clarify
roles and responsibilities; and
- Build
consensus and coalitions for action.
As individual leaders in a collaborative environment, for instance, team members must first establish a clear, mutually satisfying identity or purpose. A team’s purpose is clarified as members negotiate agreement on their collective vision, mission, and values. This clarity allows them to establish clear, measurable outcomes.
Team members must work to align individual perspectives and positions
with one another, and then with the business priorities and goals
of the organization. Once team members are aligned as a group, they
can communicate with passion and precision, and are more likely
to effectively influence and enroll partners outside the team.
During early discussions and throughout its life span, a team is
continuously confronted by the challenge of differences, and
the differences will be the source of a team’s strength and conflict.
When team members collaborate as leaders, they use conflict
as a productive step by building individual capacities to manage
the team’s relationship process.
To manage differences based on work style, personalities, race, gender, education, technical background and experience -- as well as less visible issues -- all team members must be able to initiate and negotiate at the interpersonal level. Consequently, this type of skill development should be a priority from the beginning of a team’s work charter.
Often, this is when well-timed, focused consultation and facilitation can give a team a boost toward success.
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