A Collaborative Approach to Leadership

It takes more than one person to transform an organization. Kouzes and Possner in their book (The Leadership Challenge) assert that leadership is the key to building transformative organizations through the development of a shared vision. The leader must work together with followers within the organization to execute the vision. This mandates a collaborative effort. A leader would be foolish to think he could transform an organization alone. All the vision in the world is useless unless there is someone to buy into it and build on it. Timothy Stagich in his book (Collaborative Leadership and Global Transformation) supports this idea by stating: “Leaders who understand how to facilitate collaboration are better able to improve performance and motivate people to learn, develop, share and adapt to changes at home, at work, and throughout the global community. The transformations which occur through this process help each individual and group to reach their highest potential and in the process generate benefits…” He goes on to emphasis the importance of a collaborative approach by defining successful leadership as: “The ability to influence people to a course of action though a collaborative or facilitative approach to organization or motivation often enabling them to achieve their highest potential and maximum performance.” If we are to be transformational leaders, we must adopt a collaborative approach to fulfilling the vision of the organization.