As teams have become a staple of organizational life, the usual concept of leadership as the behavior, skills, and mindset of an individual single leader has become unhelpful. As a response, the notion of “shared leadership” has developed. Shared leadership is based on the idea that the essence of leadership is an “activity that is shared or distributed among members of a group or organization.”
The model summarized
In shared leadership, team members assume roles of leadership or followership at different times, depending on the individual capabilities of each team member and the particular situation facing the team. It is based on (1) a view of persons as essentially relational and social and (2) a view of teams as collective learning.
Factors that facilitate shared leadership
- When the task requires role differentiation and multiple exchange relationships
- A larger sized group, up to the point where coordination requires formalization
- When each team member highly rates each other’s abilities to contribute toward the team goal
- When team members are highly attracted to each other
- When exchanges between any members of the team benefit the team as a whole
Barriers to shared leadership
- People don’t like the idea
- When there are status differences (real or perceived) among team members
- The tendency of one or two leaders to emerge in leaderless groups
- When individual team members seek personal status
- When demographic differences among team members tend toward domination/subservience, or cultural differences impede communication or style of teamwork (e.g. male/female, white/non-white, English-speaking/ non-English-speaking, Western/Eastern, etc.)
Can shared leadership work in virtual teams?
A note about “Soft Skills” and Shared Leadership
The relationship between the soft factors, and the implementation of shared leadership tools, equals high team performance. There are many soft skills, but in this project I will highlight a few of the more significant ones. “Team” is more than just a group of people working together, but takes practice and involves special skills in building an organic, synergistic, high-performance team.
Soft skills and team performance are interrelated and cohesively work in tandem. Most failure in teams is often not due to technical issues, but with people issues such as disagreements, conflict, personality differences, lack of trust, deficient commitment levels, fragmented participation, and lack of accountability.
The soft-skills are often referred to as the vague, subjective and difficult to pin down, unable to quantify, human side of the leadership model. Many business leaders do not see the importance of the soft skills, but in today’s complex world it is the soft skills that are bringing the competitive advantage to high performance teams.
The old model of the formal, one-person leadership leaves the substantial talents of leaders largely untapped. Leadership must be shared, and a community undertaking. Today’s model constructs a shared vision and supports leadership in others using collaborative practices. Working together is the main component in shared leadership model. This is common sense, but not a common practice in today’s business environment. Complimentary skills and emotional intelligence are key factors to this shared leadership model in which soft skills are an aspect.
