Shared Leadership:Essentials to Success

Shared leadership is an important part of any successful organization.  Economics has squeezed budgets and staffs down to bare minimums leaving everyone stretched to their limits.  At the same time expectations, mandates, and needs continue to grow.  How does a leader create a culture of shared leadership?  It requires a commitment to staff development, modeling, and risk taking.  It is an investment in the people of the organization that yields success on a grand scale.


Common Purpose:  The successful implementation of shared leadership requires a common purpose.  Everyone within the organization must share the mission, vision, and goals of the organization.  It means they must be defined and not just on paper.  They must be defined by the actions and words of the stakeholders.  Everyone should place value on the same things and direction is defined by the groups action.  This is an essential beginning, but often it is given lip service rather than voice.  Taking time with this step limits the risks for the leader.  We are all acting within the same parameters.


Equality: Shared leadership requires that everyone has equal importance to the organization.  Decisions are made through collaboration and there is a sense of shared responsibility as well.  Tasks and accountability become team responsibilities.  Each member has a voice and choice in determining their role and tasks.  There's not one artist with one brush on the canvas, there are multiple artists with multiple brushes.  The final painting may be subtly or even greatly different than the individual leaders.  But, with common purpose the canvas will bring forth a masterpiece none-the-less.  This is a scary piece of shared leadership.  Administrators tend to be "A" type control freaks that want to have all the answers.  The truth is, the more a leader thinks that they have all the answers, the less they really know about the organization.  The organization really controls what is the truth and action.


Ownership:  Equality leads to ownership.  Staff members that take ownership in the mission of the organization are engaged.  You don't have to tell them to get to work.  You have to tell them to take a break. You don't need to schedule a meeting to plan, because an engaged staff will be planning continuously.  You can't require or make expectations high enough for the staff member that has taken ownership of the organization.  There is an intrinsic value on the success of the organization.  This staff member will not let the organization fail.  You can't pay someone to feel this way.  It's about what you give them in terms of destiny.  Some leaders fail to recognize the need to allow someone to do it their own way.  I was a social studies teacher in the late 80's and early 90's.  I believe for that time, I was a pretty good teacher.  My kid's success was most important.  Today, I supervise social studies teachers.  It's hard to allow people to do things their own way, especially when you believe that the task is something that you were pretty good at and they aren't doing it the way you did.  But everyone has to have the opportunity to use the brush and paint the canvas as they see the picture in the organization's vision.


Success:  Success comes to the organization through shared leadership by creating a deeper understanding of the challenges faced in accomplishing the goals.  There is a broad base of followers working to accomplish the goals and they are looking forward to prepare for future challenges.  There is a lasting impact of the change that has taken place.  Understanding the challenges creates the opportunity for divergent solutions and allows people in the organization to use their unique skills to accomplish the goals.  Ownership leads to a broad base of followers.  This broader base includes a larger variety of talent and creates a culture of change within the organization.  People that own the change will hold on to that change even after a leader leaves.  Lasting change isn't about the leader, it's about the common vision.


Twenty years ago, I thought leadership was about proving what I could do when given a task.  I've discovered that leadership is really like working at a marina.  I simply untie the ropes and point the ship in the right direction.  Shared leadership is really about turning followers into new leaders.