Collective Leadership

Inspire and Empower People to Work Together More Effectively Through Collaborative Leadership and Shared Decision-Making

As a leader, are you feeling the burden of responsibility for leading your team? Are you tired of trying to motivate and inspire others to do their jobs? It’s time to move beyond the traditional “top-down” management practices you grew up with. Leadership today is about influence, not power or authority. It’s a “together” process that is grounded in the collective and cumulative strengths of multiple partners.

In the past, a limited number of people held the power and understanding necessary to steer the organization and its public image. Control was forced through centralized, top down decision-making. The higher up the pyramid you were, the more power you had. This makes sense in a world where a select few people are most likely to have the knowledge and experience necessary to make the best decisions.

Today, that is no longer the case. Circumstances and markets change rapidly as information flows faster. Now the people with the best insight and decision-making ability are often people closest to the customers, on the front line, or even 'outside' the typical organizational boundaries. Rather than controlling through process and hierarchy, you achieve better results by inspiring and empowering people at the edges to pursue the work as they see fit – strategically, structurally, and tactically. This freedom, however, is not a one way street. A high degree of freedom should come hand in hand with a high degree of responsibility and accountability.