Why is Collaborative Leadership Important?

Posted by Mai Hoai Thu on

Organisations nowadays have to keep themselves afloat with the ever-changing pace of the business world. The shifting movement is going towards a more collaborative, innovative, and team-based way of operating. As a result, top leaders need to take a more open approach in the workplace, in which every member of the team engages and contributes to the overall success.

Collaboration would be beneficial to not only the company but also to the employees. Working collaboratively creates an inclusive environment and allows individuals to be more creative, daring, and striving towards excellence.

Read more: 3 evolving aspects of leadership & management in the Digital Age

What is collaborative leadership?

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What is collaborative leadership?

Collaborative leadership is essentially an enhanced relationship between managers and employees. Both parties cooperate to accomplish a shared goal. Leaders must be able to work with people from other teams, branches, or departments to make sure the workflows and ideas are aligned without any confusion.

Moreover, companies now adopt cross-functional teams to generate more diverse ideas. This means that a team leader’s authority is often limited to just their field, thus leading to the need for collaboration and shared knowledge.

As such, a collaborative leader must be able to create a company culture that yields trust, mutual respect, and shared aspiration in which all members aim to fulfil one mutual goal.

Read more: 3 Key Steps to Keep You From Overrating Your Leadership Skills

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What makes a collaborative leader?

The world is changing faster than ever. Inevitably, leaders will soon collaborate with teams and others across functions, organisations, and borders. They need to obtain a collaborative mindset and become the main factor that creates a collaborative nature within the organisation.

To be more collaborative, leaders need to nurture their emotional intelligence and social engagement, i.e., the ability to control and deeply understand the emotions, desires, and motivations of their team members.

Read more: How different is business leadership and management across the globe?

Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses is one of the foundational steps to becoming a more aware and collaborative leader. Self-leadership means that leaders need to be confident and humble, allowing their subordinates to speak their minds and ideas and contribute to the process, including the most crucial phases.

In other words, leaders need to be open to new ideas, put aside their egos, learn from their employees, and develop the team as a whole. Collaborative leaders encourage shared knowledge, power, and credit and move both themselves and their team towards a mutual purpose.

Another highly crucial skill that a collaborative leader needs to have at their disposal is emotional intelligence, specifically empathy and patience. Conflicts are unavoidable, regardless of the era we live in. The leader’s role is to balance the workforce and treat conflict as a chance for breakthroughs and innovation.

Read more: What Is Emotional Intelligence and Why Is It Important to Businesses?

The process as a whole takes time and effort as it requires a large number of participants, sometimes the whole company; therefore, collaborative leaders need to keep the atmosphere calm and responsive.

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Key strategies for effective collaborative leadership

Identify the silos of any department and eliminate them through collaboration between personnel. Silos reduce your overall efficiency, negatively affect relationships between peers, and stop your organisation from achieving its goals. Collaborative leadership prevents silos and helps you carry out your project without any friction.

Blur the experience gaps and operate as if every member were peers. The purpose of collaborative leadership is to value the ideas and opinions of team members. Giving everyone plenty of opportunities to contribute to the project.

Start with a system or process for communication and coordination. Leaders must ensure that the operation is transparent and logically divided. Guarantee to provide your employees with the necessary help; and make sure they understand the expectations as well as the target achievements.

In short, as businesses continue to evolve, collaboration between leaders and employees is a crucial element that can drive businesses' success. Collaborative leadership allows companies to generate valuable ideas and encourages all personnel to aim for one collective outcome, so start developing your leadership skills with the abilities and competencies to lead collaboratively today.

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The future outlook for collaborative leadership

The future of collaborative leadership lies in its ability to foster a culture of teamwork and cooperation. As technology advances and global connectivity increases, companies are no longer limited by geographical boundaries.

This means that leaders must be able to effectively manage teams that span different locations, time zones, and cultures. Collaborative leaders will need to leverage technology and communication tools to facilitate seamless collaboration and ensure that everyone is on the same page, regardless of their physical location.

Collaborative leadership is not just a passing trend but a crucial skill set that will define the success of leaders in the future. Its emphasis is on teamwork, innovation, and shared objectives and how they align with the needs of modern businesses.

As the business landscape continues to evolve, leaders who embrace collaborative leadership will be well-positioned to navigate the challenges and seize the opportunities that lie ahead.

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 RICK YVANOVICH
 /Founder & CEO/

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