Chapter 10. Sharing Leadership

£ £ This competency enables the learner to:
¡¡¡¡Develop a concept of leadership for a group which permits different functions of leadership being shared or distributed among group members according to the situation and member's strengths.
¡¡¡¡Gain knowledge of the forces acting on the leader and the group, and inherent in the situation which makes for appropriateness of leadership styles.
¡¡¡¡Distinguish between situations in which certain styles of leadership are appropriate.
¡¡¡¡Relate styles of leadership to the twin factors of getting the job done and maintaining group integrity and morale.
¡¡¡¡Develop attitudes of using appropriate styles of leadership to fit needs of the group to meet situations and accomplish short-and long-range goals.
£ £ About Sharing Leadership
£ £ Candidate Graduation at the end of summer camp.
£ £ Sharing Leadership translates on one level into "styles" of leadership. Depending on the job and the group, certain ways for the leader to work with the group will be more appropriate than others. It also identifies some of the generic roles groups have that can be distributed among all members.
£ £ Sharing leadership is a key function of a leader. The ability to extend herself, to accomplish jobs greater than one person alone can handle, is one of the key elements of our society's success today. Never has a society been so productive.
£ £ Models for Leadership
£ £ Sharing leadership is key to the White Stag philosophy of leadership because it overtly promotes the distribution of the functions of the leader among the group. This aspect of management (shared problem-solving and decision-making) is an increasingly prevalent aspect of management worldwide.
£ £ Competitive styles of leadership are less and less responsive to complex society today. Participative or cooperative styles of interaction are the key to our future.
£ £ An individuals' style in interacting with others is an outward sign of the substance within. With experience, we can really tell a lot about people's capabilities by looking at them; but it is better to watch them in action. How does a good leader behave when the group is confronted with the need for decision?
£ £ Sharing Leadership and Participative Management
£ £ Contextual leadership describes a method of leadership that is in relative to the needs of the members. There are a a number of models for participative management or leadership advocated by different authors. One of these is Situational Leadership as described by Dr.Paul Hershey.

£ £ Contextual leadership bascially means is that there is no one best way to lead in every situation. It suggests that effective leadership varies with the maturity level ¡ª that is, members willingness and ability to lead or follow¡ª within a group.
£ £ The White Stag JLT program has historically referred to five styles of leadership: Telling, Selling, Consulting, Delegating, and Joining.
£ £ Sharing Leadership is a style of participative management. Participative management concepts have been around for many years. For example:
¡¡¡¡Situational Leadership identifies four leadership styles ¡ª Directing, Coaching, Supporting, Delegating ¡ª for leading groups that range from high to low membership maturity.
¡¡¡¡Managerial Grid. This model, the so-called "Nine-Nine" model of leadership, is described in Facilitating Group Behavior. The Nine-Nine model was formalized and popularized by behavioral scientists R. R. Blake and J. S. Mouton. For more information, see Managerial Grid.
¡¡¡¡Theory X and Theory Y. Another was conceptualized by MacGregor and called Theory X and Theory Y.
¡¡¡¡Four-Model System Lickert articulated the "Four-Model System":
£ £ £ £ o Exploitative - Authoritative
£ £ £ £ o Benevolent - Authoritative
£ £ £ £ o Consultative - Democratic
£ £ £ £ o Participative - Democratic
£ £ The key idea is that empowered individual swill feel better about their contributions and be more productive.
£ £ These styles of leadership are appropriate depending on the task, the situation, and the group. The talented leader uses the most appropriate style. They are described on the next few pages in order from most to least authoritarian.
£ £ Polar Model of Leadership
£ £ Research prior to World War II had postulated that leaders were either more effective at job-related or at relationship-oriented activities.

£ £ After WWII, educators were more willing to accept that leaders may display both job behavior and relationship behavior at the same time. So instead of a polar model of leadership, researchers at Ohio State University identified four possible leadership behavior types depending on the leader's ability to keep both activities in focus.
£ £ Styles of Leadership
£ £ The styles of leadership described here are applied by a leader based on a variety of factors: the task, the situation, and the group. The talented leader employs the most appropriate style based on the context. The styles are easily viewed as being most to least authoritarian.
£ £ Telling
£ £ In the first style of leadership, the leader is focused more on the job and less on the group. The leader typically states the problem and takes charge of the job, telling other members what to do. The leader considers alternatives, chooses one, and tell team members what to do. He may or may not think about how the group may feel about his decision. Sometimes this turns into YELLING. Other negative variations include manipulation and coercion.
£ £ The Telling style shown in Telling style of leadership is characterized by:
¡¡¡¡One-way communication.
¡¡¡¡Telling style of leadership.

£ £ For example, a new boy joins the team. The team leader takes time to explain how the team operates, when it meets, about the team procedures, and so forth.
£ £ Selling
£ £ A leader using the second style of leadership is focused on both the job and the group. The leader usually states the problem and decides what to do, selling others on his idea to gain majority support. He explains how the idea will benefit the group and tries to persuade others to go along with it.
£ £ Selling, as shown in Selling style of leadership, is characterized by:
¡¡¡¡Two-way communication.
¡¡¡¡Support
¡¡¡¡Positive reinforcement

£ £ The leader still provides the structure and makes the decisions. The major difference between this and the first style is that the leader works toward getting the follower to understand and commit to the job at hand.
£ £ For example, a young man may have what he thinks is a good idea for his Eagle service project. He has to engage others in his cause and sell them on his idea.
£ £ Consulting
£ £ In the third leadership style, the leader states the problem and after consulting with group members, decides on what seems to be the best idea. The others give ideas or reactions but the leader decides what to do.
£ £ The leader using the third style of leadership is more focused on the group and less on the job, as shown in Joining style of leadership. The leader begins to relinquish much of the structure of how the job is to be accomplished to the members. The leader fosters a lot of two-way communication, offering support and consulting in decision making.

£ £ This style is characterized by:
¡¡¡¡The leader provides continued support to the members.
¡¡¡¡There is a lot of two-way communication.
¡¡¡¡The leader focuses more on the group and less on how the job is accomplished.
¡¡¡¡The members have primary responsibility for determining how the job will be done.
£ £ Delegating
£ £ When a leader delegates a task, the leader usually states the problem and delegates the decision-making to group members. As long as their solution fits the problem as described, he accepts responsibility for it, as leader of the team. Sometimes this is a "tradeoff" when the leader has tried to sell his own idea and failed.
£ £ The leader using this fourth style of leadership is not heavily involved with either the group or the job, as illustrated in Delegating style of leadership. This style is usually only utilized in more mature, established groups. The members basically run their own show.
When this style is observed, you will see:
¡¡¡¡The leader does not work closely with anyone in particular but hangs back and lets the members plan and execute the job.
¡¡¡¡The members determine how the job is to be accomplished and as a group work to keep the group together.

£ £ Joining
£ £ Decisions reached by joining with the group¡ªby consensus¡ªrequire more time than other styles of leadership. These decisions are beyond the group-oriented, job-oriented model previously described because the leader is not focused on either the group or the job¡ªthe leader is part of the group. The group is responsible for the group and the job.
£ £ To be effective, consensus requires total member participation, a lot of motivation, and power distributed equally among all members. This method can be frustrating to a "designated" leader who wants to reserve his right to authority. This method works best when in fact the authority, responsibility, and accountability can be legitimately transferred to the group.
£ £ Some key characteristics of decision-making using consensus are:
¡¡¡¡Avoid arguing for your own individual judgments.
¡¡¡¡Approach the task on the basis of logic.
¡¡¡¡Avoid changing your mind only in order to reach agreement and avoid conflict.
¡¡¡¡Support only solutions with which you are able to agree at least somewhat.
¡¡¡¡Avoid "conflict-reducing" techniques such as majority vote, averaging, or trading to reach decision.
£ £ View differences of opinion as helpful rather than as a hindrance in decision-making.
The benefit of using the consensus method for leadership is that it can resolve complex, long-term problems more effectively than any other method. However, reaching a true consensus¡ªcomplete unanimity¡ªcan take more time than some members may be willing to give.
Even if the leader and the group do not choose to attempt to reach a consensus, the effective leader encourages active, equal participation, the expression of minority opinions, and acceptance of different points of view. See Problem-Solving for more information on facilitating decision making.
£ £ Leader or Facilitator?
£ £ At times it is appropriate for the leader to share his role in other ways, especially when he is running meetings. In most situations the leader is the chairperson for the meetings of the group. The problems with this is that the leader has too many roles: in charge of process, dealing with conflict, chief decision-maker, and most active participant.
There is a conflict between process ("Larry, you go first and then Jan...") and power ("I don't like that idea. It would be much better if we went with Laverne's suggestion.") Because in our culture the leader's status often gives him 51% of the power, and this fact occasionally goes to the head of the leader, participants may hesitate to participate when the leader runs the meeting. Then the decisions made do not reflect the group's true feelings.
£ £ Instead of sticking to the method typically described by "Robert's Rules of Order" invented in the late 17th Century, you can gain many new benefits by using the proven Interaction Method ? . 1 Portions of this leadership technique are shown in Problem-Solving.
£ £ In general, the group and meeting process is handled by a member of the group¡ªon special occasions, perhaps an objective third party¡ªwhile the leader retains the authority, responsibility, and accountability.
£ £ Selecting a Leadership Style
£ £ There are several forces affecting the type of leadership style available to the leader.
£ £ Influences Affecting Choice
£ £ A number of forces can affect a leader's choice of leadership styles as shown in the Forces affecting a leader's choice of leadership style.

£ £ Forces on Leader
£ £ These can include his knowledge, skills, attitude, experience, background, values, personal goals, group goals, confidence in members, convictions about styles and his choice of style, pressures from outside groups, time, resources, personality, sensitivity, weight of responsibility.
£ £ Forces on Team
£ £ These include the combination of personalities in the group, values, expectations, willingness and ability to make decisions, individual needs, team needs, interest, competition, confidence, resources work load, spirit, a communication, and fatigue.
£ £ Forces in Situation
£ £ These include time, restraints of organization, environment, size or duration of job, conflict of goals. emergencies, hazards, desirability of the job, justice, legality, removal or lack of alternatives.
£ £ Considering the Group
£ £ The five styles of leadership previously described are useful ways to look at leadership, and they also happen to correspond to a model of participation found among group members.
£ £ The Situational Leadership? model assumes that the leader determines the appropriate leadership style by asking:
¡¡¡¡What do we need to accomplish? (What are the group's objectives?)
¡¡¡¡Who are our resources? (What are the capacities of these resources? What relevant skills, knowledge, and abilities are present? What is the willingness and ability of those present to apply those talents?)
¡¡¡¡How mature are the individuals and the group in its ability to both get the job done and keep the group together?
£ £ Supporting Group Objectives
£ £ A wise leader selects a style of leadership that not only fits the situation, but help the group achieve it's short- and long-term objectives.
£ £ Short-range Objectives
£ £ Short-range objectives include events and activities of a more temporary nature, like accomplishing a certain task or learning a new skill.
£ £ They also include extremely urgent objectives, like responding to emergencies¡ª'Fire!" would be one. "The stew is burning!" is another. "Let's help this guy get his car out of the sand," and so on. These obviously do not lend themselves to long-term planning or developing a group consensus, but require the leader of the moment to leap in and tell others what needs to be done now.
£ £ Long-range goals are something else. It is harder to think of ways to attain them, a larger challenge to keep up team members' interest, and needless to say a greater challenge to achieve. The more long-range the goal, the more the leader needs the participation of every member in group decisions and their commitment to achieving the goal.
£ £ These might include development of group members, a high adventure trip, or creating opportunities to teach what they've learned to others. Quality leaders recognize that the style of leadership employed affects how group and individual objectives are attained. An effective leader considers how to build the group over time, not just getting the immediate job done. Some of these considerations are listed in the table below.

£ £ A way of assessing the desirability of a leadership style or the need for sharing leadership with the team is to consider both the groups' short-and long range goals. Effective, enlightened, unselfish leaders¡ªtrue servants of the group¡ªare not reluctant to encourage group participation and ownership of a decision. This is illustrated in the figure below.

£ £ The diagonal line in the diagram above separates the oblong into wedge-shaped areas. The oblong represents the total need for making decisions within the group. The leader's authority¡ªhis ability to make decisions for the group¡ªis greatest at the left. The team's participation in the decisions affecting its destiny is greatest on the right.
£ £ You can see that the five styles of leadership move on an ascending line from "telling" to "joining." Generally, less experienced and mature leaders will tend to lean on the more authoritarian types of leadership because they are insecure, desiring the role and title of leader to bolster their self-esteem, or they lack confidence in their skills.
£ £ Another way of determining an appropriate leadership style is to assess the strength of group members' interpersonal relationships, as illustrated in Relationship strength and styles of leadership.

£ £ But in any situation, the leader must consider the appropriateness of each style £ £ relative to the forces generated by the situation and from within the group. Emergency situations do not lend themselves to consultation or delegation. The leader¡ªthe responsible individual with the attitude, skills, and knowledge required¡ªneeds to take charge, now.

£ £ Barriers to Sharing Leadership
£ £ Occasionally, a leader may find that for reasons he does not understand group members are resistant to more participative styles of leadership. This resistance may be based on obscure barriers to effective team work, like the following:
¡¡¡¡Differing values.
¡¡¡¡Role conflicts.
¡¡¡¡Unclear objectives.
¡¡¡¡Dynamic environment.
¡¡¡¡Competition for leadership.
¡¡¡¡Lack of team structure.
¡¡¡¡Group membership selection.
¡¡¡¡Credibility of leader.
¡¡¡¡Lack of commitment.
¡¡¡¡Communication problems.
¡¡¡¡Lack of top-down support.
£ £ It may take some careful questions on the leader's part to ferret out the problems keeping members from full participation.
£ £ Two respected researchers in leadership, Hersey and Blanchard, have written extensively on leadership. They found that the single-most important factor a leader can use when selecting an appropriate style of leadership is an assessment of what they called the individual's "task relevant maturity."
£ £ Job Readiness
£ £ Hersey and Blanchard describe "task relevant maturity" as the individual's capacity to get the job done in a high quality manner, with a minimum amount of direction or control, while contributing to keeping the group together. We strive to keep our languge simple; we say the leaders' goal is to "get the job done and keep the group together."
£ £ Individuals may be able to get the job done and keep the group together depending on two things:
£ £ Job maturity
£ £ The individual and group's ability to get the job done. This includes the knowledge and skills required.
£ £ Psychological maturity
£ £ The individual members' self-confidence, self-esteem, and maturity.
£ £ In other words, the group's "job readiness" is governed by their:
¡¡¡¡Willingness to work with mimium supervision and guidance toward the group goals ¡ª their attitude.
¡¡¡¡Technical ability ¡ª their skills.
¡¡¡¡Their task-related experience ¡ªtheir knowledge.
£ £ White Stag JLT focuses on helping individuals develop the attitudes, improve the skills, and gain the knowledge required of a leader.
£ £ Identifying Willing Participants
£ £ Some of the characteristics of an individual who is willing to grow in their leadership capacity include:
¡¡¡¡Self-starter
¡¡¡¡Confident
¡¡¡¡Hard worker
¡¡¡¡Ambitious
¡¡¡¡Energetic
£ £ Very few people naturally possess all these attributes. Most of us have to work to acquire these attitudes. So we recognize that as leaders we must work with people at all levels to help them attain their goals.
£ £ As a leader, you will find individuals who are unwilling to work at a given job. Their reluctance may be indirectly indicated in a variety of ways:
¡¡¡¡They are insistent that the job is not important.
¡¡¡¡Procrastination. Avoids challenges.
¡¡¡¡Starts trouble, distracts from job.
¡¡¡¡Refusal to participate in group or perform jobs related to group purpose.
£ £ All of these and other behaviors are symptoms of an individual's lack of confidence in his ability to perform the job, or a lack of understanding about the importance of the job. They indicate that the individual may feel insecure, lack confidence, or generally resist authority.
£ £ When evaluating an individual's ability to perform a job, remember that this evaluation is only relevant to the job at hand. It is unwise and inappropriate to generalize your evaluation of the individual to the rest of his life.
£ £ Improving "Job Readiness"
£ £ When an individual is neither willing nor able to complete a task, the leader's first responsibility is to help them acquire the skills required. The leader would slowly cut back on the structure and increase the emotional support given to the employee. He may give the individual small, bite-size pieces that the individual can complete on his own. As the individual progresses, the leader recognizes the individual's growth and rewards him with public and private praise.
£ £ When an individual is achieving a level of consistent success, he desires more autonomy. The mature leader cuts back on both structure and emotional support. The mature participant recognizes the leader's backing off as a form of respect, confidence, and trust.
£ £ This process is also representative of what a coach counselor does with his team during the first few days of the summer camp program
£ £ Matching Participant and Leadership Styles
£ £ You can create real stress in a group if you respond to their lack of ability by delegating the job to them. Imagine walking up to a group of green eleven-year old Scouts, pointing out a large collection of spars and rope, and telling them they need to build a bridge over yonder river¡ªand you'll be back at five to see the finished project.
£ £ Similarly, if the group was all ready to get up and go, and you began to sell them on the merits of your plan, you can frustrate and demotivate them in a big hurry. Match your leadership style to the individual and group needs.
£ £ These, then, are five styles of leadership. They are all valid ways to get the group to do something but some are better than others at different times. Sometimes a leader has no choice but to tell the group what must be done. Other times the only way to get the team to do anything is to let them decide what the best way would be to get the job done.
£ £ Then there are decisions so vital, everyone's input is essential. However, a decision must be made and the leader is responsible for this¡ªit's his job¡ªit's one reason why a group has a leader. But the style of leadership chosen will determine how great a leader he is.