Top 3 Benefits of Collaborative Leadership

The world of work has radically changed since 2020, and organizations are still grappling with adjustments and adaptations. Predictions continue to show ongoing hybrid work models, a persistent war for talent, and an increasing emphasis on Employee Experience as a metric for gauging company performance.

In this new world, the old ways of leading teams will have less and less relevance, and new ways of engaging will become the key to creating a thriving culture. In other words, the future of work demands collaborative leadership.

While there are many different ways of defining leadership styles, most boil down to two basic forms: Collaborative and Guardian. 

Collaborative leadership requires an ability to actively listen and respect the independence of each person. It focuses on exploring, facilitating, and partnering and involves two-way conversations that strengthen the employee voice.

Guardian leadership directs and controls information and behavior. A guardian style assumes the manager is right and the employee needs to simply follow with minimal input or involvement.

While one could argue that there has always been a time and place for each kind of leadership, it’s easy to see how old workforce models where everyone was in-person would easily lend themselves to the guardian style. After all, with workers at their desks or stations, it’s easier to see who is working, what is being done, and how productive everyone is. And some in-person environments may be naturally more directed, offering employees less autonomy and fewer opportunities to manage their own time.

It’s also possible that some environments or situations may not require or allow collaboration—for example, in the midst of a major disruption, leadership may need to make decisions and direction without waiting for discussion or consensus. Certainly, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders had to evaluate and respond to government orders quickly and most probably had little time to collaborate before directing action.

But as the world moves to new workforce models with more flexibility, workers—even in-person workers—will likely have more opportunities to manage their own time and tasks. It’s possible that methods of monitoring productivity and output may be automated, requiring only occasional remote spot checks from leaders. 

All of these workforce models require a new way of leading—one that involves more collaborative leadership. Here are three benefits that collaborative leadership can bring to your organization in the future of work:

1. IT DEEPENS TRUST

When leaders communicate that they trust their people to manage their own time and responsibilities and still deliver results, employee engagement goes up. Likewise, when employees deliver results with less managerial direction, leaders deepen trust in their people. This feedback loop can help create a culture of trust that ultimately helps an organization thrive.

2. IT IMPROVES COMMUNICATION

A collaborative leadership style improves communication almost by default as it requires a conversation between leaders and team members. The increased conversation means more opportunities to connect both formally and informally, leading to increased opportunities for leaders to learn what’s going on among their teams.

3. IT REVEALS NEW IDEAS

While a guardian leadership style has a time and place, it lends itself to more entrenched ways of thinking and doing business, rarely allowing new ideas to take root. A collaborative style encourages a free flow of ideas back and forth, improving the possibility of innovation across the company.

New workforce realities require new approaches to leadership, As the workplace transitions to permanent hybrid models, collaborative style leadership will be the key to creating a thriving culture in the future of work.

A version of this article was originally published on Stewart Leadership's Blog.