Collaborative Leadership
Characteristics of Collaborative Leadership
Collaborative leadership is demonstrated by capabilities for relationship building and mediation to manage differences.
Collaborative leaders share power, showing patience with their partners and themselves. They favour joint problem solving and decision making, A culture of innovation fosters a capacity to learn and adapt to change. When experimentation is encouraged, people become less fearful of making mistakes.
Collaborative leadership in a culture of innovation enhances trust, open information sharing, and risk taking. This is how collaborative leadership and innovation reinforce one another to create social and economic value.
Networks are the new structure.
Relationships are the new currency.
Collaborative Leadership in the Parks Context
In the context of parks and protected areas, collaborative leadership is needed to balance goals of conservation and economics; to protect biological integrity on the one hand, and also support tourism and employment for local communities.
Collaboration through strategic partnerships across sectors can also provide an opportunity for reconciliation and renewed relationships with Indigenous peoples, where members of First Nations are engaged in the planning, restoration and conservation of cultural and natural heritage in national and provincial parks. Such collaborative leadership has created a new ethical space of engagement where “two-eyed seeing” (Bartlett, Marshall & Marshall, 2012) also enriches how new knowledge is created.
