In today’s fast-paced global business environment, organizations require flexible, innovative leadership teams that can navigate complexity and lead change effectively. It is no longer sufficient for leaders to go it alone; collaboration has become essential for driving performance and solving problems creatively.
Today we will explore what it takes to develop an authentic collaborative leadership team capable of guiding an organization successfully through periods of disruption and uncertainty.
Defining Collaboration and its Importance
Before discussing how to build an collaborative leadership team, it is important to define what is meant by collaboration. Collaboration refers to a process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can explore constructively, and perhaps resolve their differences to move in a positive direction. True collaboration involves sharing knowledge and work in a cooperative manner to achieve shared goals. It requires open communication, mutual understanding and agreement on priorities while still allowing for diverse perspectives (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). Research consistently shows that collaborative leadership teams outperform independent leaders (Katzenbach & Smith, 2003). In today’s competitive landscape, collaboration enables:
Faster decision making through combining diverse expertise and viewpoints. When leaders collaborate, they leverage one another’s strengths, minimize weaknesses through peer feedback, and create synergies that spur new ideas.
Nimbler responses to environmental shifts. Collaborative teams can sense and address changes more rapidly through greater information sharing and a shared mental model of both opportunities and risks across the organization.
Motivated employees. When leaders model collaboration, it fosters an organizational culture where people feel empowered, connected to a common purpose and able to contribute their best work (Hughes, 2006). This kind of motivated workforce is crucial for thriving amid uncertainty.
Given these clear performance advantages, developing a collaborative leadership team should be a top priority for any organization wanting to succeed now and in the future.
Assessing Current Collaboration within the Leadership Team
The first step in cultivating an effective collaborative leadership team is to realistically assess how collaborative the existing team currently is. Leaders need an accurate picture of strengths and weaknesses to target areas for improvement. Several assessment tools and frameworks exist to facilitate this process. For example, the Interdependence Inventory developed by Johnson, Johnson and Tjosvold (2006), evaluates 5 dimensions of collaboration on a scale:
Shared goals: To what extent are priorities and direction truly shared vs imposed top-down?
Shared knowledge: How extensively do leaders share expertise and think together vs working independently?
Mutual respect: How much trust, value and positive regard do leaders demonstrate for one another?
Joint decision making: To what degree do decisions emerge from consensus vs a single leader’s preferences?
Individual accountability: How clearly defined and mutually enforced are individual responsibilities vs passed around ambiguously?
Leaders can rate their team anonymously on each dimension and discuss ratings to surface themes for growth. Another approach is having each leader journal about a recent collaborative experience, noting what went well and could be improved. Bringing observations together identifies collective priorities and gives ownership over the process. Ongoing assessment is also vital to track progress.
Fostering Trust through Vulnerability and Active Listening
Once current realities are clear, taking intentional steps to build psychological safety and trust within the team forms the foundation for deepening collaboration over time. Research from companies like Google that studied effective teams found trust to be the most important factor (Duhigg, 2016). Trust is built through vulnerability, empathy and active listening. Leaders must make vulnerability the norm by openly admitting weaknesses, failures, confusions and lessons learned without fear of judgment. They must also listen with empathy by temporarily suspending assumptions to understand other viewpoints fully before being understood themselves (Stephens, 2012).
One healthcare organization facing multiple industry challenges used vulnerability sessions to strengthen trust across its executive team. Led by an external coach, once a month leaders would spend time openly yet tactfully sharing professional and personal challenges without solutions or advice offered initially in return. Over time trust and transparency grew tremendously. Leaving titles at the door helped them bond as people and not just roles, enabling hard issues to be tackled with care, empathy and innovation rather than defensiveness or politics. Regularly setting aside time and space purely for building human connections between busy professionals nurtured a collaborative spirit.
Communicating and Making Decisions as a Unit
With assessment providing direction and vulnerability building trust, leaders must also clarify how they communicate and make decisions as an integrated team rather than a collection of individuals. Regular team meetings should not be status updates but places for leaders to jointly analyze problems, brainstorm alternatives together incrementally and build towards consensus organically (Hughes et al, 2006). Consensus requires patience, compromise and caring about outcomes over personal turf. Leaders should not bring fully formed positions but be open to persuasion and new syntheses emerged through discussion.
Some companies like Intel use a consensus model where decisions are not final until all leaders agree they can sign onto the solution, even if it differs from their initial viewpoint. Seeking consent rather than compromise better preserves integrity when cooperation breaks down (Katzenbach & Smith, 2003). Check-ins throughout execution also allow for course correction as understanding evolves. Establishing clear decision-making norms upfront guides leaders in channeling diverse perspectives productively versus creating division or delay.
Cultivating Collaborative Behaviors and Accountability
With strong relationships and processes established, focus shifts to cultivating inclusive, constructive behaviors demonstrated in both formal meetings and daily interactions. Specific behaviors have been linked statistically to helping or hindering collaboration (Lencioni, 2002). Leaders must role model and hold themselves accountable to exhibiting the following cooperative behaviors:
Listening with the intent to understand rather than reply: Making eye contact, paraphrasing back and asking open not loaded questions.
Sharing credit and appreciating others: Highlighting peers’ contributions publicly and privately.
Comfortable dissenting openly: Voicing alternative views respectfully versus privately undermining consensus.
Constructive feedback: Sharing observations versus judgments helpfully to improve versus attack credibility.
Focus on issues not people: Discuss solutions objectively versus taking critical comments personally.
Follow through on commitments: Reliably execute agreed roles versus reneging when convenient.
In one Fortune 500 technology company, leaders anonymously evaluate their peers quarterly using a customized checklist of these competencies. Results are reviewed privately by HR before action planning with the leader being assessed to build on strengths and address any issue patterns emerging. Regular checking keeps standards top-of-mind and ensures leaders walk-the-walk of collaboration expected throughout the organization.
Continuous Learning and Adaptation
While initial progress feels satisfying, truly institutionalizing collaborative leadership requires relentless learning and refinement over the long haul. Leaders must actively solicit diverse perspectives through inclusion efforts, seek continuous feedback from direct reports and each other to spot blindspots, and learn from the collaborative practices of high-performing teams both inside and outside their industry. They must also lead by example, modeling reflection on successes and shortcomings without defensiveness to encourage the same in others (Duhigg, 2016).
Rather than resting on past wins, leaders ought to regularly revisit needs, benchmark techniques, surface evolving perceptions and stress test assumptions together through learning retreats led by an outside facilitator. Scanning the external environment too for opportunities strengthens collaboration further. For instance, many companies now partner across sectors on social issues requiring combined strengths. Such exposure challenges mental and organizational paradigms in productive ways. Ultimately, collaboration thrives best not through rigid formulas but flexible minds and hearts continually growing together.
Conclusion
For organizations to lead with excellence today, collaborative leadership skills have become mission-critical. Cultivating a fully collaborative leadership team demands honest assessment of current realities, building vulnerability-based trust over time, clarifying how decisions emerge and get implemented jointly, role modeling inclusive behaviors consistently, holding one another mutually accountable, and above all learning and refining practices continuously together. When done authentically through patience and care for relationships, researching collaboration frameworks, soliciting feedback widely and adapting flexibly to change, organizations empower their leadership potential to new heights and secure future success amid dynamic market conditions. Leadership collaboration, while challenging, is the key to thriving today and tomorrow.
References
Duhigg, C. (2016). What Google learned from its quest to build the perfect team. New York Times Magazine, 26.
Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., & Curphy, G. (2006). Leadership: enhancing the lessons of experience. Irwin: Burr Ridge, IL.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Tjosvold, D. (2006). Constructive controversy: The value of intensity. In M. Deutsch, P. T. Coleman & E. C. Marcus (Eds.), The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice (2nd ed., pp. 69–91). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (2003). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. HarperBusiness.
Kirkman, B. L., & Rosen, B. (1999). Beyond self-management: Antecedents and consequences of team empowerment. Academy of management Journal, 42(1), 58-74.
Lencioni, P. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. John Wiley & Sons.
Stephens, J. P., Heaphy, E., & Dutton, J. E. (2012). High quality connections. In K. S. Cameron & G. M. Spreitzer (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of positive organizational scholarship (pp. 385–399). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Jonathan H. Westover, PhD is Chief Academic & Learning Officer (HCI Academy); Chair/Professor, Organizational Leadership (UVU); OD Consultant (Human Capital Innovations). Read Jonathan Westover's executive profile here.
