Collaborative leadership refers to a form of leadership and management approach characterized by shared decision-making and joint problem-solving. Unlike traditional hierarchical models, which rely on centralized authority and formal chains of command to dictate strategy, collaborative leadership distributes influence across participants. Rather than emphasizing Command and Control it prioritizes Facilitation and Empowerment,^[1][2][3] with the aim of fostering cooperation within organizations.

The phrase "collaborative leadership", used to describe a form of leadership in the public sector, has been traced to at least 1992, when the Institute for Collaborative Leadership was founded in the United States.^[4]

In a 1994 Harvard Business Review article, Rosabeth Moss Kanter described "Collaborative Advantage" in the context of business relationships that rely on informal networks and interpersonal connections rather than formal control systems.^[5]

In 2013, Harvard Business Review^[6] authors Nick Lovegrove and Matthew Thomas, co-founders of The Intersector Project,^[7] examined collaboration across the business, government, and social sectors, arguing that leaders increasingly need to address complex public challenges. These issues include managing resource constraints, controlling health care costs, training the 21st century workforce, developing and implementing smart-grid and intelligent-urbanization technologies, and stabilizing financial systems to foster sustainable economic growth. Their research suggests that the future of collaborative leadership depends on the ability of leaders to engage and collaborate with businesses, governments and social sectors.^[6]

Hank Rubin, founder of the Institute for Collaborative Leadership, and Leonard Brock differentiate collaborative leadership from collective impact, defining the latter as beginning when a community agrees on shared outcomes. "Individuals then return to their respective organizations to determine how they, both personally and organizationally, can contribute to achieving those goals."^[8]

David Archer and Alex Cameron, in their 2008 book Collaborative Leadership: How to succeed in an interconnected world, identify the basic objective of the collaborative leader as the delivery of results across boundaries between different organizations. They state that "Getting value from difference is at the heart of the collaborative leader's task; they have to learn to share control, and to trust a partner to deliver, even though that partner may operate very differently from themselves."^[9]

There have been a number of research projects and reviews of key lessons learned for collaborative leaders.

Nick Lovegrove and Matthew Thomas, writing for the Harvard Business Review,^[6] interviewed over 100 leaders. Many of these leaders demonstrated the ability to engage and collaborate across the business, government and social sectors. The authors identified six major, distinguishing characteristics:^[6]

1. Balanced motivations: A desire to create public value, no matter where they work, combining their motivations to wield influence (often in government), have social impact (often in nonprofits), and generate wealth (often in business)
2. Transferable skills: A set of distinctive skills valued across sectors, such as quantitative analytics, strategic planning, and stakeholder management.
3. Contextual intelligence: Empathy for the differences within and between sectors, especially those of language, culture, and key performance indicators.
4. Integrated networks: A set of relationships across sectors to draw on when advancing their careers, building top teams, or convening decision-makers on a particular issue.
5. Prepared mind: A willingness to pursue an unconventional career that zigzags across sectors, and the financial readiness to take potential pay cuts from time to time.
6. Intellectual thread: Holistic subject expertise on a particular intersectional issue by understanding it from the perspective of each sector.

Madeline Carter, writing for the Center for Effective Public Policy as part of a research project funded by the United States Department of Justice and State Justice Institute, also defines five qualities of a collaborative leader:^[10]

1. Willingness to take risks
2. Eager listeners
3. Passion for the cause
4. Optimism about the future
5. Ability to share knowledge, power and credit

Rod Newing, writing in a Financial Times supplement special report, said that "If a collaboration is to be effective, each party must recognize and respect the different cultures of the other." He continued "Traditional management development is based on giving potential managers a team of people and a set of resources to control – and success is rewarded with more people and more resources to control. By contrast, collaboration requires managers to achieve success through people and resources outside their control and for this they have had no preparation."^{[citation needed]}

Steven Wilson mentions four major key leadership traits that all highly collaborative leaders share in his article, "Collaborative leadership: it's good to talk":

• Focus on authentic leadership, placing the goals of the organization ahead of their own self-interest and following through on their commitments
• Relentlessly pursue transparent decision-making, clarifying how their decisions are made and who is accountable for the outcomes
• View resources as instruments of action, realizing shared goals through the flexible use of shared resources
• Clarify the relationship between decisions, rights, accountability, and rewards, taking time to establish decision paths and using a common vocabulary that everyone can comprehend for successful collaborations

Wilson further states that the best thing a collaborative leader can do is to lead by example. Leaders must show a willingness take risks, continually question their own ideas, and reward others for their clear communication and valuable insights.^[11] Chantale Mailhot, Stephanie Gagnon, Anne Langley, and Louis-Felix Binette conducted a research project to examine the qualities of distributing leadership and the effects diversity has on groups. They found that "coupling of leaders and objects helped to maintain the worldview of the different groups involved at different levels in the research project, while directing them towards project objectives".^[11] In retrospect, the differences of each individual increase innovation due to the variety of minds at work. With everyone having their own qualities and prior experiences, the integration between them in a leadership role contributes to the overall experience.

Collaborative leadership is being used in the following areas:

1. Public-Private Partnerships
2. Global Supply Chains
3. Civic collaboration to solve complex community problems
4. Online collaboration - Linux, Wikipedia, etc.
5. Political collaboration to deal with issues such as the 2008 financial crisis, climate change and terrorism
6. The Government - According to Heather Getha-Taylor and Ricardo S. Morse as part of their article, collaborative leadership has an impact on the roles of local government officials. It is said that public administration is shifting to a more collaborative leadership-oriented field because it helps with the set of skills necessary for the jobs.^[12]
7. Education - According to Abdolhamid Arbabi and Vali Mehdinezhad, collaborative leadership adds to cooperation which allows for adaptability and consistency, "increas[ing] organizational commitment and decreas[ing] employee resistance to changes." There is a significant correlation between the teacher's self-efficacy and the principal's style of collaborative leadership. According to Gialamas, Pelonis, and Medeiros collaborative leadership allows for leaders to work together. It allows for a better adaptability to change which in turn allows for "growth and development."^[13]
8. Health Services-According to Markle-Reid, Dykeman, Ploeg, Stradiotto, Andrews, Bonomo, and Stradiotto, collaborative leadership in the health area will provide a broader set of skills necessary to help the patients. An example brought up is the idea that the elderly do not receive the help they require because while they may have the theoretical knowledge, they lack the practical skills to apply it in real-time situations. Collaborative leadership will allow for the skills necessary as well as a uniform set of actions they must follow.^[14]

An Ipsos MORI research report, published in 2007, found that relationship management and collaborative leadership were the top two qualities or capabilities that directors of organizations involved in large business partnerships would have liked to have had more access to when setting up or running a partnership.^[15]

• Collective intelligence
• Collective decision-making
• Collective problem solving
• Collective intentionality
• Group cognition
• Business partnering
• Collaboration
• Shared leadership
• Situational leadership
• Strategic alliance

• Middleton, Julia (2007). Beyond Authority – Leadership in a changing world. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-50001-3.
• Tapscott, Don; Williams, Anthony D (2006). Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Atlantic Books. ISBN 1-59184-193-3.
• Reffo, Gerry; Wark, Valerie (2014). Leadership PQ: How Political Intelligence Sets Successful Leaders Apart. Kogan Page. ISBN 9780749469603.
• Echavarria, Martin (2015). Enabling Collaboration – Achieving Success Through Strategic Alliances and Partnerships. LID Publishing Inc. ISBN 9780986079337.