Collaborative Leadership
Recently I was asked to moderate a panel at the Bay Area Open Space Council’s annual conference on collaborative leadership.
Why the interest in collaboration and how to lead collaborative efforts? Simply put, there is just not much that the individual heroic leader can do anymore. Perhaps there never was. In order to create progress in our complex world, all leaders are challenged to manage teams and partners in an ecosystem of relationships.
What the collaborative leader is able to do is bring together a diverse group of interests and help them to co-create a desired future.
To do this the collaborative (or servant) leader needs three core competencies:
- The ability to convene. This is the set of skills around identifying who needs to be at the table and creating an invitation and environment where collaboration is possible.
- The ability to facilitate. This is the set of skills around invoking the group’s collective wisdom and vision to address the needs it identifies.
- The ability to activate. This is the set of skills that helps a group turn a shared vision into a an action plan with shared responsibilities.
These are complex and new skills, but in the environment we face, they may be the most critical skills a leader has.
Filed by Joseph McIntyre under Management