Considering collaborative leadership as a means to improve how your organisation operates?
Regardless of whether you’ve received complaints about your senior management team or issues have been identified within your own leadership approach, collaborative leadership could be a more effective practice to adopt for your business.
No familiar with collaborative leadership? Fortunately, the experts at Leadership Success are. Simply carry on reading to discover how to be a collaborative leader using this quick guide.
What is collaborative leadership?
effective than a sole leader that works alone. This type of management practice is designed to inspire and bring teams together, utilising their combined intelligence, creativity, and competence.
Collaborative leadership therefore involves creating an open and honest environment where everyone trusts and respects one another. Similarly, this practice also depends on all individuals being engaged, fully accountable, and fully aligned in terms of their collective business goals.
As a result, leaders that practice collaborative leadership will primarily use their position of authority to build positive relationships with their team. They can do this by initiating high-quality conversations, understanding what motivates everyone, and always encouraging them to contribute their thoughts and ideas.
Why become a collaborative leader?
Due to the fast and highly competitive nature of business in this day and age, becoming a collaborative leader is not so much a choice as it is a necessity for a business’ survival in this ever-evolving environment.
Adopting a collaborative leadership approach can be especially useful for tackling some of the more complex or multi-faceted problems that a business might face. These issues might include having a weak brand identity, uncertainty about the economy or future of the business, or supply chain disruptions.
With more expertise and knowledge to draw from, you can make more informed business decisions, helping your business to compete and thrive in its respective industry. To learn more about the benefits of good leadership skills and practices, please feel free to speak to one of our experts today!
How to be a collaborative leader
To become a collaborative leader, there are certain skills and characteristics an individual would need to develop. Our professional team explains some of these essential collaborative leadership qualities in more detail below, they include:
Shared decision-making
Collaborative leadership values different perspectives and feedback, so it’s important to ensure that the insights of all individuals are taken into consideration when making business decisions. Receiving and utilising input from all areas of the business is therefore crucial if you want to be a collaborative leader.
Building trust and respect
For your team to feel comfortable enough to provide you with their feedback and insights, they must first be able to trust and respect you. One way to achieve this is by building solid team member relationships using positive interactions, clear and consistent communication, as well as showing understanding and support.
Being engaging and motivating
For team members to care about achieving your collective business goals, they must be properly engaged and motivated. Good collaborative leaders do this by recognising and rewarding good work and allowing their team to grow in a way that contributes to their overall happiness at work.
Focusing on clear communication
Clear, two-way communication is another essential skill for all collaborative leaders as their role is to gather as much feedback and input from other team members as possible. Ensuring members of the team fully understand what kind of information is required (as well as why and when) means the leader is likely to receive more helpful insights.
Empowering and delegating responsibilities
While collaborative leadership takes a more collective approach to making business decisions, this doesn’t mean collaborative leaders can’t delegate. In fact, delegating certain responsibilities to induvial team members bas
Develop your leadership kills with Leadership Success
Keen to learn more about collaborative leadership? With the right individualised leadership development guidance, you could become the type of leader that you’ve always wanted to be, but why choose Leadership Success to support you?
At Leadership Success, we provide a comprehensive suite of practical assessment services and tailored development programs to help individuals from all kinds of industries to obtain and excel in a wide range of managerial positions.
Offering a confidential environment, objective viewpoint, and the opportunity to identify and improve your leadership approach, our network of external delivery partners provides a safe place to work through a whole host of leadership-related issues.
To discuss your requirements with one of leadership experts, please feel free to give us a call on 02045292622. We also welcome email enquiries sent to hello@leadershipsuccess.co as well as messages via our social media.
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