BUS603: Managing People

Distributed leadership "recognizes individual and collective agency, and the reciprocal nature of the practice of leadership", which is more important than the particular leadership roles or the specific leadership function. It implies that "leadership tasks are dispersed rather than delegated and that such dispersal is widely enacted across organizations". Therefore, distributed leadership is best understood as a practice distributed over leaders, followers, and their situation, which incorporates the activities of multiple groups of individuals. Harris et al. argue, "where leadership is distributed then inevitably the forces of power, authority and control are also distributed and shared".

Distributed leadership faces two challenges: (1) establishing collective trust toward a common goal and (2) actively engaging and guiding those who have yet to form mutual trusting relationships. For distributed leadership to occur, trust and empathy are needed for authentic collaboration, information sharing, and interdependent idea generation. Nevertheless, the distributed paradigm of leadership tolerates uncertainty, diversity of perspectives, flexibility, functionality, and role exchange between leading and following. It is open to global challenges and solutions, is eager to acquire new knowledge, exhibits a constant learning attitude, and, unlike earlier leadership approaches, maintains an egalitarian and results-oriented approach. Thus, distributed leadership may be useful for digital native generations in the digital era. The challenge that distributed leadership may pose to complex digital teams is that it lacks fluidity between simultaneous leading and following actions in group and organizational settings.