COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP

                                     
                                                                                                                  COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP

                                                                                                                                  Everyone can be a Leader

                                                                                                                                          Timothy Stagich, Ph.D.

    What is a real leader? Leadership is often described as some vague or promotable individual quality of successful people. Decision maker, delegator, great communicator have all been used to describe what it means to be a leader. However, leadership is much more than charisma or style. Real leaders make everyone around them better and lift them up to higher levels of performance. They recognize the special contributions of every individual and bring out the best in others. And, this is a group effort.

     So, real leaders are collaborative or team leaders who know how to make the group or organization better by helping everyone to make their own special contribution. Whether you are working as a manager in business, as a politician in government or a teacher or administrator in education, these are the real ingredients for success as a leader. Helping people to understand their roles and special value in an organization is one of the most important elements of leadership. Successful  leaders  build  teams  by  communicating  this  value effectively.

     Everyone is a part of a team. So, even role players and team members have important contributions to make and, therefore, have important leadership roles to play by contributing in their own special ways to the group’s or organization’s success. It could be as a member of a committee, group project, task force as well as a city council or board of directors meeting. Every individual participant has an important leadership role to play. And, real leaders recognize these special contributions. So, real leaders are collaborative or team leaders who recognize and understand the importance of the individual contributions of each member. This is significant because the single biggest failing of leaders and managers in organizations is their inability to recognize how each individual is significant to the whole and has a special value.

     Why do leaders fail to recognize the abilities and contributions of others? There are many reasons such as the lack of understanding of employee development and what it takes for groups to perform at the highest levels. However, the one reason that seems to stand out the most after years of study of this is the great misconception in society today about what it means to be “the best.” In high performance groups the equality of each member and the value of their contributions are essential. Often it is the seemingly smallest contribution that makes the difference in a very large way between success and failure. Also, successful leaders are able to see how each member’s contributions are contributing to the goals of the group or organization and are able to help all members to build together on each other’s contributions by  communicating  this  information  to them.

     This collaborative effort for mutual benefit is called synergy as it contributes to the improvement of the group as well as every individual member. These are the groups that perform at the highest levels. And, the changes that often occur in these groups are life altering. In other words, as you are achieving your goals you are also becoming a better person and a better team member. This term of “synergy” was originally coined by Ruth Benedict who studied how cooperative groups that operated for mutual benefit accomplished significantly more than groups that were competitive or at odds with each other. Abraham Maslow endorsed this idea and added his own of how cooperative members in groups tended to lift each other up to higher levels of performance. These ideas are what collaborative and real team leadership are built on.

     So, real team leaders are high synergy leaders who know how to bring out the best in others and lift them up to higher levels of achievement. The story of “Rudy” helps to illustrate this point. Rudy was a young man in the mid seventies who loved Notre Dame Football and dreamed about attending Notre Dame and playing football there. However, Rudy was small and always struggled to make the grade in school. When it was time to apply, he had considerable difficulty getting into the school but managed to bring his grades up just enough to finally get accepted.

     Naturally, because of his size making the football team was a long shot, but Rudy showed such determination on the field that the coaches finally agreed to carry Rudy on the practice team. The other players became so influenced by Rudy’s determination that their own effort improved significantly and they voted to have Rudy included on the regular team roster for the final game. Clearly, Rudy’s contribution was much more than any statistics on the field would show. And, it can be argued that he contributed more than any other player to improving the effort and the desire to succeed.

     The real leadership here is reflected both in the coaches or other player’s abilities to recognize Rudy’s contribution and in the example of Rudy, himself, that lifted the other team members to higher levels of performance. Too often with distorted ideas of “the best” we fail to see these special qualities that usually make all the difference. So, these same leadership qualities can be applied to every group situation where the seemingly small contributions often help the group to achieve their goals in a large mutually beneficial way. The different perspective on an issue that was previously ignored or overlooked or the quiet input of those we ignored before but learned to listen to even when their ideas were different from our own. Leaders find a way to include and build on these different views.

     So, what do we need to do to become a collaborative or team leader? I think it involves primarily four main areas of focus – Purpose, Pride, Performance and Productivity.

-         Purpose : We need to focus on the group purpose that goes beyond our own individual selfish interests. And, we need to connect this purpose with some larger purpose that helps everyone in the group to succeed individually and collectively. For example, if the purpose of the group is to develop computer software and the mission or main goal of the organization is high levels of customer service, the group must work to make the best “user friendly” software they can. This understanding of the larger purpose or mission usually translates into the best run organizations with the highest levels of customer service and employee confidence.

-         Pride: Collaborative leaders need to instill pride, not just in some competitive idea of “the best,” but in the group goal of actually being the best by working together to build on a quality effort and the pride in helping others to do the same. Helping each group member to understand their prime areas of contribution and value to the organization instills pride and the belief that they can make a difference.

-         Performance: Collaborative leaders realize that working well together for mutual benefit improves both performance and the level of contribution of each member. They also understand that this effort of helping each other transforms the ordinary performance into the extraordinary performance. Michael Jordan was a great scorer, but he did not become a champion until he learned to share the ball and get his teammates more involved as a team. By recognizing and not failing to overlook that seemingly small contribution large advances can be achieved.

-         Productivity: If you are in business, one of your goals is to earn a profit by years end. Increased team performance under collaborative leadership translates into increased profits without the mergers, liquidations, outsourcing or financial restructuring. In other words, high performance groups make organizations more efficient. And, if you are in government or the education field, collaborative team work translates into greater learning and better decision making outcomes that benefit everyone. In other words, as you are building better teams and organizations as well as performance, you are also creating a better society. And, we are all stakeholders in this effort. Better organizations mean a better society.

     Finally, everyone can be a leader if they learn to work as a group for mutual benefit and learn to recognize as well as value the role that every member plays in the success of a group or organization. And, with greater focus on purpose, pride, performance and productivity that goes beyond our own individual interests, any group goal is achievable.