In today’s world, all employees should strive to be leaders
“Every single person who works within a business owns the responsibility of showing leadership at their craft. Every single teammate is the CEO of their own small business unit called their job,” according to Robin Sharma, author of “The Leader Who Had No Title.”
Sharma says that while positions are important to the smooth running of any organization, each stakeholder needs to show leadership in their work. This idea is referred to as distributed leadership.
Distributed leadership is concerned with the practice of leadership rather than specific leadership roles, according to an article in Teacher Magazine. This means taking advantage of leadership expertise at all levels to generate more opportunities for change and improvement. It means choosing and depending on leaders based on expertise rather than role or seniority.
“If we think about leadership as being confined to only those in positions of authority then we are wilfully ignoring the leadership talent and capability of many others,” the article states.
Distributed leadership has to be carefully planned and executed.
People in leadership roles must create opportunities for it to happen.
Employees need to take responsibility for decision-making and for the results of their decisions. It requires transparency, trust up and down and across the organization and a common vision and guiding principles.
Even if you agree with distributed leadership, it can be difficult to implement, as it does not always fit into existing structures. No doubt it will be disruptive and difficult to make changes to your systems, but it is worth the effort.
When it works, distributed leadership generates more ideas and opportunities, builds capacity, increases employee motivation and loyalty and improves efficiencies and profits.
Individuals are accountable for their actions and collaborative teamwork becomes the way of your organization.
In fact, creating collaborative teams is a key to getting started with distributed leadership. This has to be purposefully practised and committed to by all team members.
“In today’s world, many organizations struggle with the capacity to meet changing consumer or community needs,” says Jim Commerford, president and CEO, YMCA of Hamilton/Burlington/Brantford.
“In my opinion, distributed leadership allows an opportunity for an organization to consider how it might engage all staff on a more meaningful level, contributing to both the personal and professional development of the employee while enhancing organizational performance.
“Therefore, for any employer who may desire greater employee engagement, this is one more tool to consider.”
Successful companies have proven that change can be driven from the front line.
Southwest Airlines is repeatedly recognized for its excellence in customer service, which is attributed to the fact that the company makes employee satisfaction its priority.
An often shared story is how in the company’s early days, it needed to come up with a way to transport the same number of passengers with fewer planes. The whole company, including baggage handlers, ground crew, flight crew and pilots, were asked for ideas.
Based on their collective knowledge, a new system was devised that cut airport turnaround time drastically.
Southwest Airlines employees are involved in problem solving and are given the opportunity to make decisions to help the organization run smoothly.
At Southwest Airlines, employees play leadership roles at every level of the organization and management invests in front line leaders and recognizes a job well done.