Collaborative Leadership – What Happens When Hierarchies Flatten?

Do top-down hierarchies still work in businesses? Or do leaders today need to find a different approach that best serves their companies and people? Research determining how group members interact when there’s a threat or rival says collaborative leadership is a better choice than traditional business structures designed to demonstrate power, authority, and control.

In contrast to egalitarian teams, top-down structures seem to hurt team dynamics. Additionally, they create a worse perception of the group’s performance. Lindred Greer, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, explains:

– When you look at real organizations, having a clear hierarchy within your firm actually makes people turn on each other when they face an outside threat . . . Effective teamwork against threats requires not hierarchy, but egalitarianism.

In addition to this, the most prominent generation in the U.S. workforce—millennials—want changes in how organizations operate.

– Millennials understand their impact ties in with their ability to operate as leaders within their company. In top-down structures full of red tape caused by traditional power structures, it’s almost impossible to become an ideal team player and drive real change. This is debilitating for those who are self-motivated and seek fulfillment and meaning at work – Google’s former Head of People Lazlo Bock says.

To avoid these problems, consider implementing collaborative leadership into your organizational structure. This way of guiding a business builds leaders at all levels and allows the team a more participatory role in shaping the company’s future.

What is Collaborative Leadership?

Collaborative leadership is the distribution of power and influence starting at an executive level. However, this way of leading affects the entire company. With collaborative leadership, teams are more synergetic and communicative. They also understand how they can work together to produce optimal results.

Collaborative leaders encourage participation, group decision making, and the expression of thoughts, feelings, and ideas. They create a safe environment for their leadership team to openly communicate and reach conclusions about the direction of the company. Ultimately, collaborative leaders work to instill a sense of unity, camaraderie, collectiveness, and team spirit among group members.

Benefits of the Collaborative Management Style

In today’s business world, a singular person having full command and control over a company isn’t feasible. With that being said, collaborative leadership is a great option that allows executives and others on the leadership team to play to their strengths. Doing so optimizes the talent on the team, which ultimately drives the success of the company.

Some of the main benefits of collaborative leadership are:

– an increase of creativity and innovative ideas;

– better conditions for open communication among leaders and workers;

– higher levels of employee engagement, performance, and productivity;

– a stronger team that operates with the mentality of tackling challenges and problems together;

– employees becoming more “accepting of organizational rules and their perceived organizational performance”;

– creating leaders at every level who are capable of working together in a productive, motivating way;

– more opportunities to listen to and include diverse thoughts, feelings, and beliefs before reaching a decision that affects team members;

– keeping the human connection element alive in technology-driven companies.