Distributed Leadership

Pattern number within this pattern set: 
514
Kenneth Gillgren
Gillgren Communication Services, Inc.
Problem: 

How to ensure flexibility, responsiveness, capacity building in situations characterized by rapid change, complex relationships, and at the same time encouraging and sustaining full engagement.

Context: 

A reality beneath any decision-making or organizational theory, and underlying even the most hierarchical structures. Combining the person, the role, and the situational factors into a coherent team effort that explicitly acknowledges, nurtures, and integrates the strengths of individuals while continually challenging each person to gain the ability to back up other individuals.
Assumptions of leadership underlie and condition the content, process, and expectations of communication throughout the group.

Discussion: 

Concrete integration and development of multiple intelligences; releasing action through focus on objective results and subjective experience.

Solution: 

Explicitly acknowledge and cultivate individual strengths as as aspects of team leadership opportunities and responsibility; insofar as possible, always encourage partnering or back-up systems so that training is incorporated into every effort; assign tasks to both recognize and stretch the development or application of known assets

Pattern status: 
Released