Shared Leadership Managing Complexity
by Fred Kofman
Just as in the theory of systems the whole is more than the addition of its parts, in management, the team is more than the addition of its members. That which makes a team differ from a group of working people is synergy. Through the development of a shared vision, an engagement with certain essential values, a context of mutual confidence and respect, and a unifying interpretation of certain recurrent practices for the efficient coordination of actions, a group of individuals can generate a creative energy which largely exceeds the mere addition of individual energies. Such as a light beam may organize itself by means of a crystal into a laser ray, a beam of individuals may organize itself through a field of intellectual, emotional and existential forces producing an extraordinary team. The leader is the person in charge of creating and maintaining such field of forces.
Traditionally, the leader is identified with a person detaining formal authority. From ancient heroic myths to modern management literature, the leader appears as an individual capable of leading others. This image is valid all right, but it conceals other possibilities. In this article I want to put forward an alternative idea: shared leadership. To do so first I will analyze the role of the leader and then I will propose it can be played by a collective person. Moreover, my thesis is that in highly uncertain situations, exercising shared leadership has advantages over individual leadership.
Quoting Peter Senge, "Our traditional idea about leaders – special persons who determine the direction to be followed, take key decisions, and instill energy – is based on a nonsystemic and individualist vision of the world. Especially in the West, leaders are heroes, great personalities occupying the center of the scene. As long as these myths prevail, the focus of attention will increasingly fall on immediate facts and charismatic heroes rather than on systemic forces and collective learning."
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