Language reference

Here are some examples of the language you can use to talk about shared leadership and collective responsibility.

1. Managing the knowledge gap

Encouraging others to challenge your view of reality

What am I missing here?

Can you give me another perspective?

Forcing interaction

Pam, what do you think of Gill’s idea? Can we put these two ideas together in some way?

Exploring collaboration

What’s the best way to do this?

Who has the expertise for each of these tasks?

2. Managing the remoteness issue

Negotiating channels of communication

Can we decide this virtually or shall we do this face-to-face?

When shall we meet face-to-face?

Checking in via telephone

Paul, sorry to disturb you. I just wanted to catch up on a few things briefly. Are you free?

Michaela, are you free for a second? I just need to get your ideas on a few things.

Building a team of local advocates

Would you like to take on a bigger role here locally?

I need someone to represent me here. Would that role interest you?

3. Managing the authority paradox

Planning collaborative decisions

I would like us to decide which decisions we need to take and by when. How shall we take this decision?

Letting go of leadership

Would you like to take the lead here? Who wants to take responsibility for this?

Escalating

I need to discuss this with my own boss to get a decision.

Let’s escalate this to force a decision.

4.Managing the diversity dilemma

Expressing your leadership beliefs and values

For me, leadership means…

As a leader, my expectations of the team are that…

Exploring leadership expectations

What is good leadership for you? What do you expect from a leader?

Celebrating the positive impact of diversity

It’s great that so many different ideas have enabled us to…

Our success is clearly the result of the different talents in our team.

5. Managing the sustainability risk

Setting targets for personal development

So, what would you set as development targets for yourself this year? Can we agree that you will… ?

Tracking performance progress

What progress do you feel you have achieved with respect to… ?

How effectively do you think you can now… ?

Clarifying values

I think our long-term focus should be on…

In the end, we stand for…

6.Managing the democratic demand

Offering greater transparency

In the interests of transparency, I would like to…

In order to be transparent, I think we should…

Requesting accountability

We all need to be accountable for… Accountability is important because…

Proposing involvement

I would like to involve you more in… How do you see yourself playing a bigger role in… ?