The workplace is becoming more collaborative and dynamic, and it is hardly the case that a single leader has all the expertise needed to deal with it. When leadership responsibilities are shared across multiple team members, team performance tends to improve. Anne Sweeney did an in-depth exploration of how team members share leadership responsibilities over the period of a year. She identifies the prevalence and predominant patterns of shared leadership.
When we think of leadership, most people think of a single person in charge, guiding a team, organisation or country towards its goals. The idea of a single leader directing a team has long been the norm in many organisations, reflecting how leadership has been traditionally defined as “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal”.
However, as the workplace becomes more knowledge-intensive, collaborative and dynamic, no one person possesses all the expertise needed to tackle every challenge an organisation or team faces. This is where shared leadership comes in. Shared leadership is simply defined as “leadership that emanates from members of teams, and not simply from the appointed leader”. So, instead of relying on one formally appointed leader, a shared approach spreads leadership responsibilities across multiple team members. This allows teams to be more flexible, adaptive and innovative, and there is evidence that it results in improved team performance.
While this idea of leadership as a group process has been growing in popularity since the mid 1990’s, little is known about how team members share the leadership space in practice. For instance, it’s not clear whether they should undertake overlapping leadership roles (multiple members jointly setting the direction or planning and coordinating tasks) or unique roles, where an individual engages in the specific leadership role most suited to their skills. There is a spectrum of possible role configurations, but to date, the patterns that emerge when leadership responsibilities are shared within teams remains unclear.
To bridge this gap, my research provides an in-depth exploration of how team members in five organisational teams in Ireland shared leadership responsibilities over the period of a year. Drawing on data from team member diaries and in-depth interviews, I identify not only the prevalence of shared leadership, but also predominant patterns.
Prevalence
In total across the five teams, 284 incidents of shared leadership were reported in participant diaries and discussed in in-depth interviews. Incidents were initiated by almost all participants, with 96 per cent of them being credited with at least one leadership act. While some engaged in leadership more than others, the average number of leadership acts attributed to each team member was ten. Although shared leadership was prevalent in all teams, the way it was shared differed in each context.
Here’s a summary of the key findings describing the patterns emerging in the five teams studied.
Withdrawal from leadership behaviours (Team 1)
Team 1, composed of five female UX designer/developers at a research centre in an Irish University, initially exhibited shared leadership, but gradually withdrew from these behaviours. One of the primary reasons for withdrawal was the lack of business development activities by management, leading to a failure to secure new business. A subsequent emphasis on small, solo projects and a perceived lack of organisational support also contributed to this withdrawal effect. Over time, team members who felt let down by their manager and unsupported by their organisation avoided extra-role behaviours, including leadership.
This supports previous findings that the degree to which tasks are connected so that team members depend on one another to achieve their goals (task interdependence) is an important pre-requisite for shared leadership to emerge. Also, the perceived organisational support (the employee’s perception of the extent to which the organisation values their contribution and is concerned about their wellbeing) is identified as an important relational factor preceding the emergence of shared leadership. There are clear implications here for organisations seeking to sustain shared leadership activities, in terms of both task design and organisational support.
Specialisation in leadership responsibilities (Team 2)
In Team 2, which consisted of four male research engineers working on a 5G telecoms project in the same research centre, team members continued to exhibit leadership for the duration of the project. In this case, each member tended to specialise in a distinct leadership role, based on their individual skills and inclinations. For example, one member took responsibility for developing the vision and setting the direction of the project, another on task coordination and reporting, a third on communications and external relations, and the fourth on technical problem-solving.
This was facilitated by relational conditions in the team: high levels of trust meant that people were willing to rely on one another and had confidence in each other’s capabilities. This was found to be an efficient and effective leadership distribution, with each team member playing to their strengths. However, specialisation led to dependence, making the team vulnerable when key individuals were unavailable. This was observed when one member who was influential in directing the team left the organisation, impacting the project’s leadership. Pursuing this form of shared leadership has implications for team composition, particularly concerning the selection of individuals with complementary leadership skills and the retention of team members thereafter.
Rotation of leadership responsibilities (Team 3)
Team 3, a group of six male software engineers in a global software company, practiced a rotating leadership model. Team members voluntarily assumed leadership roles on a bi-weekly basis, supported by an empowering line manager and an environment conducive to trusting relationships.
This rotation provided a wide range of capable leaders and reduced reliance on any single individual. However, in urgent situations when the team faced imminent deadlines, leadership tended to be concentrated in one experienced individual, demonstrating the dynamic and fluid nature of shared leadership. While the rotation of leadership has advantages, it also has implications for training, as all members need to develop a broad range of leadership skills.
Simultaneous enactment of leadership (Team 4)
Team 4, a management team with two males and two females in the research and development department of an Irish pharmaceutical company, practiced a form of shared leadership best described as simultaneous enactment. All team members participated in leadership activities at the same time, engaging in planning, decision-making, and problem-solving together.
This co-enactment of leadership was facilitated by the team’s structure (members had equivalent managerial status and complementary skills) and the highly interdependent nature of their work. While this approach allowed for backup behaviours and minimised the impact of absent members, it also led to some duplication of effort and role ambiguity. Pursuing this form of shared leadership requires careful team composition and job design to manage effectively the interdependence of tasks.
Centralisation of leadership (Team 5)
Team 5, consisting of nine development scientists in a global life sciences company, exhibited a more centralised form of shared leadership, with three individuals performing the majority (77 per cent) of leadership acts reported. The centralisation likely resulted from frequent changes in team composition and the larger team size, which created an implicit hierarchy based on tenure and expertise, though there was also evidence of low trust between team members, which may have prevented a further distribution of leadership.
The concentration of leadership among a few members had advantages, such as leveraging expertise, but also risked alienating other team members, particularly new ones who reported feeling excluded from decision-making. This approach may necessitate the development of conflict management skills to address potential resentment and ensure long-term team cohesion.
Conclusion
The prevalence of leadership acts credited to team members during this study underscores the potential for shared leadership to increase the leadership capacity of team-based organisations. The findings also highlight the complexities involved in implementing this approach within teams. Shared leadership can take many forms and is highly contextual. Careful management of contextual conditions such as team composition and task design, and relational conditions such as trust and perceived organisational support, is required. Recognising these nuances is crucial for organisations seeking to successfully foster and sustain collaborative leadership approaches.
- This blog post is based on Sharing the Leadership Space: Toward a Contextual Understanding of Shared Leadership Patterns in Organizational Teams, Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies.
- The post represents the views of the author(s), not the position of LSE Business Review or the London School of Economics and Political Science.
- Featured image provided by Shutterstock
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