Table of Contents >
Chapter 13. Orienting Ideas in Leadership >
Section 11. Collaborative Leadership >
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| Contributed by Phil Rabinowitz Edited by Val Renault |
Checklist
Here you'll find a checklist summarizing the major points of the section.
What is collaborative leadership?
You know that important characteristics of collaborative leadership are:
__ Insistence on collaborative problem-solving and decision-making.
__ Maintenance of an open process.
__ Leadership of a process, rather than of people.
Why practice collaborative leadership?
You know that advantages of collaborative leadership include:
__ Buy-in.
__ More involvement in implementation.
__ Trust building.
__ Elimination of turf issues.
__ Access to more and better information and ideas.
__ Better opportunity for substantive results..
__ Generation of new leadership.
__ Community or organizational empowerment.
__ Fundamental change for the better in the ways communities and organizations operate.
You recognize some disadvantages of collaborative leadership:
__ It's time-consuming.
__ It demands the ability to face conflict directly
__ It may mean trying to overcome resistance to the whole idea of collaborative leadership.
__ It can lead to groups taking what seems to you to be the wrong path.
__ It demands that leaders subordinate their egos.
When is collaborative leadership appropriate?
You practice collaborative leadership when:
__ Problems are serious and complex, and both affect and require attention from a number of individuals and groups.
__ There are a number of diverse stakeholders, or stakeholders with varied interests.
__ Other attempts at solutions haven't worked.
__ An issue affects a whole organization or a whole community.
__ Inclusiveness and empowerment are goals of the process from the beginning.
Who are real and potential collaborative leaders?
You recognize collaborative leaders as people who:
__ Have community credibility.
__ Relate respectfully and easily to all groups in the community.
__ Have good facilitation skills.
__ Can act as catalysts for the collaborative process.
__ Nurture new leadership.
__ Have a commitment to the collaborative, open process.
__ Focus on the good of the organization, collaborative or community as a whole.
How do you practice collaborative leadership?
You lead the process:
__ You help the group set norms that it can live by, and that encourage respect, participation, and trust.
__ You assure that everyone gets heard.
__ You encourage and model inclusiveness.
__ You help people make real connections with one another.
__ You mediate conflicts and disputes.
__ You help the group create and use mechanisms for soliciting ideas.
__ You maintain collaborative problem-solving and decision-making.
__ You push the group toward effectiveness by:
__ You help the group choose initial projects that are doable, in order to build confidence and demonstrate collaborative success.
__ You help the group identify and obtain the necessary resources to do the work.
__ You insist on and protect an open process,
__ You keep the group focused on what's best for the organization, collaborative, or community as a whole, rather than on individual interests.
You recognize and use the leadership context:
__ You know (or learn about) the community:
- Its history (including its history with the current issue).
- Its people and organizations and their relationships with one another.
- Its current situation.
__ You understand the nature of the problem, including factors unique to the community.
__ You understand potential barriers to collaboration, and how to overcome them.
__ You know how open people are to change, and where you have to start in order to be successful.
__ You motivate the group and keep them focused on the goals.
__ You are realistic about what the group can take on at any given time.
__ You are flexible in your dealings with people and ideas.
__ You are inflexible in your protection of the inclusive, open, collaborative process.
__ You forego the need to satisfy your ego.
__ You encourage new ideas from others.
__ You encourage new leadership from within the group.
__ You step aside, temporarily or permanently, when appropriate.