Being a good human and an authentic leader feels hard at the moment. The daily news isn’t helping us feel any better… Fear and uncertainty are being used to divide us, to other fellow humans and make enemies of those we once called friends and colleagues. Each of us pursue life-long missions to leave the planet in a better state but the tide keeps working against us.

It is hard to remember that we all have some agency in these times, but we do. We can choose how to lead, behave and respond in every moment.

What I’ve learnt about leading over the years is that it is a moment by moment, day by day, intentional practice. Programs like HB’s are critical to making us more aware of what we believe about ourselves and how others receive our leadership practice and behaviours… but even when the program stops, our reflection and learning must keep going.

We present this monthly email series exploring the practical reality of leadership. We hope you find it useful as you continually discover and practice your own leadership in your workplaces and communities.

And although the work feels lonely sometimes, we see you… we see the sparks, ideas and solutions that you are advocating for to make our planet and how we live better. It’s the reason the HB Organisation team gets out of bed everyday – we can’t think of a better community of humans to support and empower. You got this!

Join us on socials to continue the conversation or contact us directly.

Collaboration, not Competition

It is no accident that leading collaboratively is one of HB’s values and a leadership practice that HB-ers work hard to role model in their worlds. I’ve grappled with how to lead collaboratively many times – how to gently and kindly lead, question, discuss, debate and co-create without standing out as the leader, in a way that all those involved feel equally valued and own the outcome. It is a practice that is not the norm in our world, with many of us being ‘apprenticed’ under more command-and-control types of leadership. Although countless studies and our own experience tells us how ineffective and unsustainable this leadership model is, it can be sub-consciously entrenched in the way we show up.

Why It’s Hard

Awareness is key and so it may be useful to think about each of these elements and why they make it hard to lead collaboratively:

• Time pressure: collaboration takes time and if the process continues without conclusion, there may be the tendency to move to a more directive approach.
• Ego and identity: leaders are often rewarded for decisiveness and vision. We are all human and can be energised by recognition to a large or small extent.
• Power dynamics: Hierarchy and titles are programmed into us from very early in life, particularly growing up in older generations, so it can be hard to shake our own perceived power dynamics in a given situation which can distort our concept of ‘equal’.
• Dislike of uncertainty: Our lack of tolerance for uncertainty is primal – shared decision-making means giving up control over any outcome and seeing what evolves and this can feel really uncomfortable.
• Cultural differences: Not all team members are used to flat, participatory styles and expectations can clash.

The benefits of working and leading collaboratively are game changing to organisations and teams that invest effort in practicing it – collaboration fuels innovation, builds trust and creates impact that competition alone cannot achieve. We rise higher when we rise together.

Tips for leading collaboratively in practice

Leading collaboratively becomes possible and even easier when coming from a place of emotional equilibrium. Being stressed or in a spiral of your own insecurities (we all have them) won’t help us to let down our guard and truly be open to the magic of collaboration. Emotional imbalance keeps us stuck in the competition mindset. So before launching into any other tips, check your emotional state, centre and do what you do to get grounded.

Collaboration can be time-consuming and is iterative so plan ahead for it and build extra time into your plans. Be intentional about collectively practicing collaboration.

During team interactions, actively invite contributions, especially from quieter or less confident colleagues. Use different facilitation techniques to gather ideas so everyone has an opportunity to get their ideas across (smaller breakouts, written idea submission instead of just verbal, structured turn taking).

Open and frequent information sharing is core to collaboration. Hoarding knowledge undermines this leadership approach, so set up a system that enables all team members have all known information available and to them.

It is only human that our ego will creep up on us but actively modelling humility will keep this in check. Acknowledge when you don’t have the answer and draw on the strength of the others. This is a point at which your journal may come in handy – still feeling energised by recognition? Be honest with yourself and explore how you might value and recognise your own self more often without needing external recognition.

Lean into constructive disagreement but hold each other accountable to doing this in a respectful manner.

And when it gets hard or we get stuck, keep returning to the ‘why’, the mission of the group or the problem that the team is solving that everyone has a shared interest in achieving.