Shared Leadership

Shared team leadership represents a mutual influence process carried out by members of a team where they lead each other toward the achievement of goals. It is characterized as collective team leadership by team members and involves collaborative decision making and shared responsibility for outcomes. Shared leadership is viewed as an emergent leadership process that can be contrasted with the traditional hierarchical, or vertical, approach to leading teams. Typically, hierarchical leadership is a top-down process that is engaged by a formally designated team leader who is ultimately responsible for decision making and accountable for team outcomes. In contrast, shared leadership describes an informal influence process that develops over time among the members of a team who take it upon themselves to lead each other, to ...