The Collaborative Leader

Book excerpt: In The Collaborative Leader, L. Michael Hall and Ian McDermott answer key questions about leadership. What is collaboration? How does it relate to leadership? How do you do it effectively? How do you pull people together, inspire them with a meaningful vision, and organise them so that a team spirit emerges and peak performance is achieved? The Collaborative Leader is a practical guide to collaborating with others and leading collaboratively. That means learning how to win the hearts and minds of those who we lead. Packed with practical and immediate action points, the book will show you how to turn around a non-collaborative group or environment immediately. You will find assessment questions throughout, step-by-step processes on collaboration, and an invitation to action at the end of each chapter: a personal challenge to step up to the collaborative level of leadership. Learn the core competencies that facilitate a healthy, joyful, and productive collaboration. The foundation of collaborative leadership is self-collaboration. The leader who cannot effectively collaborate cannot effectively lead. If you are to walk your talk, you need to demonstrate collaborative skills yourself, and this book will show you the 'how to's' for developing the critical success elements of leadership. The best collaborators are those who have lots of fun collaborating. The goal can be serious. The collaboration can be fun. Learn how it's possible by understanding the structure and processes of collaboration. Whether you're responsible for team or organisational development, you'll find plenty here to inspire you to transform your leadership into collaborative leadership.