مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

The complexity and uncertainty of twenty-first century business environments diminish the effectiveness of traditional, hierarchical approaches to leadership. To create an adaptive, agile organization, capable of both noticing and responding to emerging trends and customer needs, leaders are increasingly required to act interdependently and share leadership. According to Pearce and Conger, authors of Shared Leadership: Reframing the how’s and whys of leadership, shared leadership is a dynamic, unfolding, interactive social process among individuals, where the objective is to lead one another toward the achievement of collective goals and results in improved performance.

Healthcare organizations are faced with navigating the interconnected forces of the Affordable Care Act, political instability, shifting consumer demands, and all of the resultant evolving financial and regulatory challenges. The reality is that no one can predict what large-scale changes are coming next or their impact. Successful leaders are those who can deal with constant ambiguity, notice important patterns amongst the noise, and look at the world through multiple stakeholder perspectives. Shared leadership offers a way for leaders in the healthcare industry to navigate complexity and deal with uncertainty.

With respect to shared leadership, there remain many questions about how to move from an abstract, conceptual understanding to practically applied actions. The nextstep to advancing the practice of shared leadership is to develop and evaluate tangible models and experiences that enable learning and direct application of the concepts. The work presented here emerged from a test of learning based on one of the most sophisticated, sustainable models of shared leadership in action, namely the shared leadership practices found in herds of horses.