Read Fitzsimons, D. (2016, May 12). How shared leadership changes our relationships at work. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/05/how-shared-leadership-changes-our-relationships-at-work.
As Declan Fitzsimons suggests in the Harvard Business Review article, the 21st century moves too quickly and is too dynamic to be handled by one person. By sharing leadership among multiple individuals, the organization can more adaptively respond to challenges, share disparate, but complementary perspectives, and ease the burden experienced by the traditional, charismatic leader figurehead. However, sharing leadership leads to its own issues and obstacles apparent in the multiple relationships between team members, subordinates, and other employees in which not only do individual identities become involved, but collective, shared identities as a group. It is also important to recognize that shared leadership is not about delegation, but about putting in effort to coordinate and collaborate, along with balancing individual and collective goals. Recent reviews of the research on shared leadership suggest that, overall, shared leadership is effective at improving team performance, attitudes, and behaviors, especially when the leadership is transformational or charismatic and when the team tasks are complex.
Major Topic Areas
Power and politics
Organizational change
Organizational structure
Leadership
Sample Solution
