Posted on Oct 25, 2016
Can an organization be effective with co-leaders?
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I remember having a conversation with my leadership and colleagues about relationships. I explained to them that in my relationship, my partner and I are of equal standing, meaning there is no leader and no follower. One of my colleagues mentioned that it's impossible, as there always has to be one leader. He also stated that the male should lead the household, but that is a different conversation entirely.
I would like to bring this into an organizational leadership. Can an organization be effective with co-leadership? Or do you believe that there has to be one leader?
I would like to bring this into an organizational leadership. Can an organization be effective with co-leadership? Or do you believe that there has to be one leader?
Posted in these groups: 
Leadership
Organization
Leadership Organization
Edited 8 y ago
Posted 8 y ago
Responses: 12
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From my perspective at least, you should be a team. That means important decisions are made together and the team member who has the most expertise in an area takes the lead. When we are shopping and I pick up something that looks good, my wife might tell me to put it back because it has too much sugar in it. The same day she might ask about donating to a charity, I might look them up and see that their overhead is too high or that they have questionable ethics and tell her to find a different charity. We work as a team, each taking the lead on a regular basis depending on knowledge and experience.
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SPC John McDuffie
I agree, but we aren't looking at the size of the "team" or "organization". I believe this is one of the key factors to having a successful co-leadership style. We can relate this to the military in the elite forces such as the Navy Seals and a regular Army combat Brigade. The Seals being a smaller team are able to "ignore" rank and effectively communicate and accomplish their mission, letting a combat brigade of 300 people attempt to accomplish their mission with out a hierarchy structure would be a near impossible feat.
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An organization can have as many leaders as needed, the main thing is that there has to be one mission. You can't have leader A saying the most important thing is pushing sales and leader B saying the most important thing is customer satisfaction. As long as both leaders are on the same page, it doesn't matter how many leaders there are.
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