BUS603: Managing People

The principles of shared leadership work through empowering staff/team members to make decisions on processes within the confines of their work. This chance to develop new strategies has proven to be a great way to increase morale and satisfaction. Of course, this increased morale and satisfaction cannot be sustained without efficient teamwork that leverages efficiencies that align with the values of the team. Through shared leadership, the group and organization can obtain improved patient results. From the case The shared leadership challenge in strategic alliances: Lessons from the U.S. healthcare industry, one can ascertain that having a more ingrained shared leadership (at least at the executive level) can lead to a departure from a short-term view of decision making to that of long term view. This case also echoes the theory that alliances, created through shared leadership, equate to better customer value and care and not a 100% focus on bottom-line financial decisions.

According to Voss Graham, there are seven key factors that need to exist for Shared Leadership to exist:

1. A common goal: By creating a goal there is meaning and purpose. If you do not have a goal, productivity and focus drop. The group also runs the risk of someone else assigning the goal and not having the right version of value.

2. Respect for everyone: Diverse thought is a key piece of what each individual brings to the group. By incorporating diverse thought and incentivizing where appropriate, the unity of the group increases. When the unity increases there is a larger opportunity to pledge to a larger purpose.

3. Trust in each other: Trust connects everyone to the larger group. When there is a lack of trust, factors like fear of failure, low self-esteem and an over reliance upon rules and laws become commonplace.

4. Personal accountability for results: Accountability is a major contributor to high performance for individuals and teams. Personal accountability is the understanding that under-performing and over-performing are all about the right type of goals being obtained.

6. Effective communication: Communication drives results and productivity, and it is a two-way street where you must over-communicate and truly make sure that your communication is effective. While most people articulate in a way that they understand, without the feedback of their group, they will never know if their messaging is being understood.

While barriers to shared leadership exist, I believe the intent and impact of shared leadership cannot be discounted. Possible constraints with this leadership theory include: large workloads, increased turnover rates, transactional/mundane work, and poor scope of goals. Additionally, shared leadership has the additional work of continuously evaluating whether or not the impact is measurable in a quick paced environment like healthcare. This additional work might not be seen as value added, but the impact of shared leadership can not only affect the team in which it is occurring but can have longstanding effects of influencing and increasing the perspective of the group in the overall hierarchy of the organization.

One individual with whom I currently work is what I would consider a Shared Leader. He is currently the leader of an account management team and through alliances has implemented several key initiatives that were created in his organization but affect several other areas. The methodology that he implements is that his team cannot be truly effective if there are inefficiencies up or downstream from his department. So, he has worked to create key alliances with organizations on both sides, and this has led to key learnings and enhanced commitment from all internal stakeholders and the solidification of broad goals.