By Sujaya Banerjee
We are living in times of exponential change, where adaptability, innovation and learning within organisations need to exceed the pace of change outside to remain relevant. If we glance at the last decade, we have excellent examples of business model innovations — electric vehicles, new modes of payments, changing consumer buying behaviour and consumption of entertainment.
The revolution caused by technology, the internet, Wi-Fi and mobile telephony are all incredible, to say the least. Yet,management styles remain mostly the same. Organisations realise the challenges of tall hierarchies and their impact on slowing down change and execution. But still, many other organisations continue being sluggish and sub-optimal, unable to break out of old habits and the comfort of the hierarchy.
Persisting crisis & leadership: When a crisis occurs, in its initial stages power invariably moves to the top of the organisation and the focus is to protect the business and survive in the short run. But when the crisis persists, like indeed the current upheaval has demonstrated, power begins moving across to the periphery of the organisation and must be shared across levels to enable timely decisions, problem-solving and execution. This can manifest leadership across levels, especially influence front lines to rise to the occasion, solve problems with speed and enable execution to align seamlessly with the organisation’s strategies to survive. The persisting crisis has led to many organisations waking up to the power of shared leadership, while for others it’s been a first-time experience to witness what teams are capable of achieving when allowed to make meaningful contributions. Thus, unleashing the human spirit beyond self-imposed limitations of expectations and designations.
Take a moment to think about your organisation: How much of the responsibilities and decision-making do you allow across levels? To what extent are the perspectives and skills of your employees well utilised? Do you involve junior employees, even the high-potential ones, to influence decision-making, especially in areas that impact their work? How effective is your frontline? How capable and empowered are they to solve problems for customers? The answers to these questions indicate the degree to which your organisation may be leveraging distributed leadership, where decision-making is consistently and systematically vested across levels within the organisation.
Cultures of distributed leadership: In this era of constant and unprecedented disruptions and rapid generational, technological,economic & demographic change, the early adopters of distributed leadership unleash cultures of human centricity, through empowerment and coaching. This is where contributions are valued more than seniority or tenures, and where the yardstick for measuring success involves sustaining high-performance cultures of engagement and innovation. It also involves leaders who comprehend the power inherent in including voices and opinions of many, see how their practices make for more reflective,connected, and resilient organisations. It makes organisations notice how more externally connected and impactful with customers & communities they have become.
Co-creation & distributed leadership: Both the processes of co-creation & distributed leadership are intrinsically linked and open up opportunities for solutions and ideas that speed up the innovation process by including a wide range of voices that would normally never have been involved. Co-creation & distributed leadership are organisational answers to the complexity of the current context in which organisations work. Concentrating decisions for action at a top management level is a recipe for inertia, selective blindness, indecisiveness and ultimately failure. Stakeholder involvement, constructive dialogue and autonomy are key for organisational success today. A sustainable future for an organisation needs the involvement of employees, managers, customers, suppliers, local communities, financiers and the government in order to create a shared purpose, contract on how they can contribute and take care of each other’s needs. Co-creation & distributed leadership set the conditions for sustainable development within organisations because they bring expertise and experience together to enable a creative change process.
The benefits of distributed leadership are many, as articulated by leaders who have experienced how it can powerfully transform organisational culture and sustain high performance.
Here is a list for why this is a worthwhile pursuit:
- Distributed leadership can bring more joy and deeper meaning to the concept of work itself. Feeling empowered to make a difference and knowing your opinion/decision counts and manifests into important accomplishments is a powerful motivator
- It brings more ownership & accountability and reduces opportunities for finger-pointing and blame games, as responsibilities are shared
- It takes away the symphony orientation with a conductor and creates a more fluid Jazz band kind of organic, seamless collaboration and performance, which is more rewarding
- It enhances engagement across levels and the positive energies to contribute
- It generates incredible support for both success and failures
- It empowers young professionals to find meaning, build relationships across and prepare for more responsibilities
Distributed leadership is proving to be the key to organisational success for the 21st-century enterprise, where things are changing too fast and multiple perspectives are needed to understand and decide how to manage it, and a pipeline of future leaders to sustain success in the future. Distributed leadership is more than delegation. It is about building a culture where everyone is in charge, with shared sense of purpose and responsibility for the overall leadership of the organisation.
The writer is CEO, Capstone People Consulting
