Shared Leadership: How everyone gets to be the leader!

Have you ever looked at someone and thought they were suited for one task or unsuited for another? Maybe you’ve been in a group where the formal leader did not know how to complete a certain task but someone else in the group did. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could just become the temporary leader to use their knowledge and direct the group? With Distributed (Shared) Leadership anyone can be the leader at any given time. According to the Northouse text “shared team leadership occurs when members of the team take on leadership behaviors to influence the team and to maximize team effectiveness” (Bergman, Rentsch, Small, Davenport, & Bergman, 2012; Northouse, 2022, p.812). To simplify this, each member of the team takes on the leadership role when they have the most to offer for the task. For example, if we are working on a group project and one individual is phenomenal at researching he/she will become the leader and conduct the group when we go to conduct research. Conversely, the group member who is good at crafts will become the leader and conduct the group when it comes time to build the project. Each individual steps up into the leadership position to fulfill the roll that suits their skills the best. However, as the Northouse text also points out, “shared leadership, while very important, does involve risk and takes some courage for the member who steps forward to provide leadership outside the formal role of team leader” (Amos & Klimoski, 2014; Northouse, 2022, p.813).

Talking theory is great but it truly becomes understandable when used in real world application. This previous semester I was part of a marketing class that had an assignment to play a marketing simulator. We were given teams at the start of the semester and told that we would be playing the game the whole semester. When my team met and introduced ourselves to each other we decided rather quickly to adopt a formal leader. With that being said, we adopted one of the girls in the group to be the leader seeing how she always put together the Zoom meetings and got everybody together to work. However, even with adopting her as the formal leader we naturally shifted to a shared leadership style. It felt the most comfortable for the situation and luckily the team had individuals who were willing to step up and lead when their abilities were needed. Throughout the course of the project there were multiple different elements of the simulation that required different skillsets. For example, there was an product development/R&D element as well as advertising and pricing. Having them all jumbled together into one simulation meant that we had to understand it all. The best way to tackle this was to designate task focuses to each individual member. I personally took the lead on pricing as I understood the pricing structure the most. I was able to become the leader for those periods of time and I would direct my other group members on how to arrive at the proper price for our product. On the other hand, I knew very little about the advertising aspect so other team members with a more creative base stepped forward to highlight their abilities and lead us to success. As the Northouse text points out, shared leadership styles lead to an increase in consensus, trust, and group cohesion (Bergman et al., 2012; Northouse, 2022, p.813). By capitalizing on the skills of each follower we can maximize overall team efficiency and promote the best work.

While we briefly spoke about Shared Leadership, Northouse expands on the topic with the Team Leadership Model. According to the Northouse text “the model provides the leader with a cognitive map for identifying team needs” (Northouse, 2022, p.839). A major strength to this model, according to the text, is that it takes into account the dynamically changing roles of followers and leaders in organizational settings. This is “consistent with a paradigm shift from top-down, hierarchical leadership toward more horizontal, team processes” (Friedrich, Griffith, & Mumford, 2016; Northouse, 2022, p.843). The text indicates that shared leadership is becoming increasingly important in the modern age where members of the team must all be able to perform the leadership functions necessary to “assess the current effectiveness of the team and then take appropriate action. This approach is consistent with the current movement in organizations to rethink leadership responsibilities in work teams (…) now, with organizational restructuring, these duties and responsibilities often are distributed across the team [instead of to a formal leader]” (Northouse, 2022, p.843). Instead of focusing on the leader as an individual the model seeks to focus on the critical aspects of being a leader such as team diagnostics and deciding courses of action (Northouse, 2022, p.843). This model has become increasingly popular within team-based organizations as it reduces in-group vs out-group mentalities.

Looking back at the example I gave, the Team Leadership Model could significantly have helped us during our project. While we were definitely good at working together, the Northouse text points out, “in immature teams leaders might need to take on more of the leadership roles, whereas in a mature team the leader might be able to sit back and let the team lead itself” (Northouse, 2022, p.845). I would personally consider my team more mature as we were definitely able to self-govern and not burden our formal leader with every leadership responsibility. We all did a great job of splitting the leadership burden equally and shouldering the load. We were able to accomplish this primarily because of, as the Northouse text points out, our competent team members (Northouse, 2022, p.820). I was lucky enough to have a team where everyone was capable of taking on leadership responsibilities so we were all able to distribute our workloads evenly and account for each other’s weaknesses.

In conclusion, shared leadership is becoming a very popular style of leadership in modern teams. The idea that each individual can act with a level of autonomy and control is refreshing and helps maintain trust, cohesion, and respect between leader and follower. I was able to implement shared leadership into my group project without even being aware of what I was doing. However, I can accurately say that I heavily prefer that style of group work as it gives each individual the ability to highlight their skills and become important to the overall process. By directly influencing the outcome we can achieve a higher level of motivation for the team as well as further team unity.

References:

Northouse, P.G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice. 9th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.