There is a leadership fallacy that many people subscribe to – of the strong leader. The idea that a single person knows best. This dichotomy is not the only choice available for businesses; what if another choice can be multiple leaders that possess a blend of attributes and attitudes of good judgment for wise actions?
The diversity of wise attributes and attitudes found in the form of multiple leaders, can be key to success in today’s complex and fast-changing world. With large co-operations such as Netflix increasingly adopting co-leadership, will more businesses follow suit?
The strengths of resilience, perseverance and endurance can be helpful, but making judgements as to what course of action to take in today’s more ambiguous world can be challenging. Consulting with trusted others, listening to diverse views and analyses and then taking decisions offers the prospect of carrying people on a journey they might not otherwise be willing to make. This is why I advocate co-leadership and its benefits if done right!
Consider how CEOs and leaders are tasked with the acceleration of responsibilities brought about by digital transformation and the many challenges accompanying it – from the treadmill of workforce in service re-training, to prioritising employees’ mental health and physical well-being, balancing racial and religious diversity, ensuring privacy rights and cybersecurity – to name just some issues given far less credence a few decades ago.
Today’s leaders navigate more than simply running a business and this makes senior leadership far more complex than before. Changes in technology have made us all more productive, able to analyse situations and take decisions more quickly – but this access to more information and greater multi-tasking also places far more pressure on us.
It should come as no surprise then that in the United States, from 2000-2019, average CEO tenure decreased from 10 years to less than seven. The increased probability of burnout is obvious so, considering a problem shared is a problem halved, it is reasonable to expect that co-leadership can offer advantages.
One major problem faced by singular CEOs is the absence of people around them they can trust. This makes sharing problems and listening to solutions more difficult and means a leader cannot afford to ever be seen as at fault. By sharing the responsibility of decision-making, it is far more probable an agreed course of action which has greater buy in from the team can be reached. It can also result in more open discussions about ways to reach the organistions’ goals, ultimately leading to greater success.
Of particular importance, both leaders in co-leadership should have high degrees of knowledge maturity, the abilities to see and use the interconnections between their own internal knowledge and wisdom of others, and identifying the issue at hand for the greater good. Individuals with high knowledge maturity understand themselves and use that understanding to engage wisely with the world. The greater the knowledge maturity, the more likely the leaders will be able to see that success emerges from a healthy interconnection between each other, as well as other key stakeholders within the organisation.
The knowledge mindfulness approach to co-leadership
Having co-leadership does not mean “two heads are better than one” as the sum is greater than the parts – it means having “many heads, many hearts and many souls” interconnected together for the good of all – a knowledge mindfulness approach that emphasises the values of flexibility, trust, openness, empathy, in addition to a diversity of an expanded intellectual competencies.
These attributes reduce possible challenges faced by the co-leadership model, such as conflicts over ego and power. The practical framework of the knowledge mindfulness approach can help co-leaders and teams build the trusted relationships required to feed and deliver not only high performance but also deeply connected teams and organisations.
Cohesion and harmony between two CEOs are important but needs time to develop and grow and be practiced, preferably in different positions of responsibility before elevating people into co-CEO positions. To achieve this outcome – organisations need to establish a selection process built around the many dimensions required of a CEO. I suggest assessing the knowledge maturity of each candidate to evaluate and improve the probability of success beforehand.
With the increasing demands on business leaders, the co-leadership structure is increasingly positioning itself as an alternative leadership choice, resulting in greater benefits for the business and its employees in today’s world – if executed correctly.
Today’s and tomorrow’s organisations need leaders with high knowledge maturity to handle their complex and varied responsibilities and to realise not only the short-term business goals but also the long-term vision. What better way than to have that delivered by joint champions of progress that can take more people on the journey to shared success.
Understandably, the adoption of co-leadership requires a rethink of older perceptions. If we are to challenge the strong single leader fallacy – a prevailing wisdom in so many of today’s companies – we need to rethink many of our old assumptions around leadership, knowledge and what success actually means.
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