Consulting

3iQLeadership
Coaching
Training
Systems
Integrity | Inspiration | Innovation Support

3iQ Thought Leadership Series

Article 1: Distributed Leadership
Introduction
Distributed Leadership builds many legs for the organisation to stand on, widening the
foundations of competency and internal structures for growth that support sustainable growing
organisations and enable them to provide economic viability and later social services back to
their communities. By focusing on developing leadership at every level in the organisation, the
Distributed Leadership framework provides a holistic perspective to manage leadership and
organisational development. Adopting a soccer team metaphor for team level focus of distributed
leadership, the focus of performance development as any soccer coach knows, is one of
balancing a team’s functioning ensuring no one dominates and everyone has a chance to make
their plays. In organisational terms this means distributing leadership and its development across
all levels of the organisation and ensuring that ball can pass fluidly and well between team
members, and sub-sections of teams from defenders to middle field to frontline goal makers, that
everyone accepts their role and position yet has a pathway from growth and development,
receives coaching on and off the field, feels a strong sense of ownership of their team goals and
has a part to play in developing and implementing their teams strategy and tactics.

Distributed Leadership aims to make everyone a leader, including those in follower roles.
Offering followers opportunities to learn to manage up, work collaboratively and develop their
self-management is an integral component of Distributed Leadership. Running counter to high
performance models Distributed Leadership offers everyone in the organisation consistent and
appropriate development opportunities and sets expectations of them to manage their
development. Definitely lip-service doesn’t fit with Distributed Leadership. Discrepancies or
inappropriate programme fit to levels, mismatches or favouritism quickly emerge and fail the
Distributed Leadership principle of integrity. Trust is easily broken and takes considerable effort
to recover. Distributed Leadership shifts the focus to expect and support development of high
performance and mutual support from everyone. Managing unwanted excesses such as stress or
misalignment of demands and competency is achieved through emphasising self-control and
team-support as integral components of a strong Distributed Leadership programme.

Distributed Leadership
Distributed Leadership crystalises management governance and human resources attention
towards building leadership at every level and in every individual and every team in the
organisation. Let’s identify the following basic levels in organisations: individuals, teams,
knowledge specialists, team leaders, line managers, business managers, functional managers and
division and enterprise managers. Of course the Board of Directors or Governing body is an
essential level to be included here. Distributed leadership involves planning and developing clear
guiding principles for leadership at every level. These principles need to be converted
transparently, promoted widely and consistently to into functional programmes and actions
throughout the organisation that develop leadership at every level.

©3iQLeadership 2009 Commercial-in-Confidence Page 1

 Consulting
Coaching
3iQLeadership Training
Systems
Integrit y | Inspiration | Innovation Support

Distributed Leadership applies principles and practices relevant to each level of leadership and
its development that will efficiently and effectively develop and optimize integration of
leadership throughout the organisation. Distributed Leadership is a goal and a journey.

Distributed Leadership is an organisational design and development philosophy that builds

strength through creating high performing mutually supportive individuals and teams, with such
individuals and teams acting as crucibles of performance development through positive social
experiences, action-learning, and feedback and reflection. High performing mutually supportive
teams are the core sources of self-development, self-managed leadership, opportunity for career
development and innovation and ethical behaviour.

Distributed Leadership translated into practice means HR leadership, line leadership and senior
management practices create the context for self, team and business growth and development.
These practices encourage individuals and their teams, business units and the organisation as a
whole to get increasingly involved in managing their own performance growth and development.

Features
The Guiding Principles of Distributed Leadership follow:
 Everyone is a leader, every mutually supportive high performing team is a leadership group,
and every senior manager’s role is to facilitate development of all the individuals and teams
in their business division or unit
 Individual level principles:
o Everyone has access to self-leadership development opportunities from personal
productivity to team leadership and beyond and are expected to develop their
leadership skills and individual and team performance
o Everyone has a coach – typically their immediate supervisor
o Everyone has an opportunity to choose and commit to clear positive guiding work
values in the organisation and demonstrate these in their self-leadership behaviours

 Team Level principles:

o Everyone belongs to at least one and preferably not more than three teams at any one
time
o Team goal setting and performance development is facilitated by the team leader
o Team goals and actions are decided by all members of the team and are framed on a
simple balanced scorecard system developed by the team, are coached and endorsed
but not decided by the team leader
o Teams derive their feedback regularly from two primary sources: internal team
members and external customers they serve
o Teams aim to meet the six guiding team principles for high-performing teams:
 Mutually supportive, open internal and external communications, strong
internal trust, set their own objectives, gather their own data against their
metrics, and reflect on their performance frequently

©3iQLeadership 2009 Commercial-in-Confidence Page 2

 Consulting
Coaching
3iQLeadership Training
Systems
Integrit y | Inspiration | Innovation Support

 Business/Enterprise Level principles:

o Leadership involves senior managers communicating about and facilitating
translation of forces and conditions in the external environment to opportunities for
growth and development of structures, roles and accountabilities, internal policies,
strategies and commitments to actions that reinforce individual and team
commitments to the values and success of their teams, themselves and their
organisation
o Building and sustaining alignment between personal and organisational brands for
everyone
o Advancing the organisation’s contribution to its social leadership role and
contributing to the communities it serves and draws talent

Benefits
The benefits of Distributed Leadership when effectively implemented include:
 Individuals grow – are expected and supported to develop themselves and their self-
leadership through providing the social context and tools that enable opportunities for growth
and development
 Teams become high performing and mutually supportive – by growing teams using the six
guiding principles
 Organisations – become high-performing and adaptive through the progressive development
of individuals, their teams and their leadership at all levels
 Community – develops through the participation of economic success of its organisations,
avoidance of organisational misdemeanours and failures, and direct contribution towards
social development programmes
o Everyone benefits

The Way Ahead

Current perspectives of leadership and organisational development are typically something less
than holistic and systemic. Distributed Leadership provides a holistic framework to plan and
position leadership development and its vital role in contributing to total organisational
robustness and resilience. Recently we have seen the effects of organisational failures on
employment, leadership branding and our global society as a whole that have been very
damaging to our communities. Adopting a significantly stronger and more robust perspective on
leadership development and its role in contributing to organisational growth is a vital social
driving force that we must learn to harness. Distributed Leadership raises the expectations of
leadership to everyone and supports their development.

Major inputs needed for adopting a Distributed Leadership programme in any organisation
follow the common principles of change management applicable to any large scale change or
culture development. Critical mass of support, key stakeholders and champions, strategic drivers
either internally or externally or sourced from both, an alliance of power and support to carry it
from inception to application and finally supporting policy, tools, and systems. Most

©3iQLeadership 2009 Commercial-in-Confidence Page 3

 Consulting
Coaching
3iQLeadership Training
Systems
Integrit y | Inspiration | Innovation Support

organisations are somewhere along the path towards the goal of Distributed Leadership, most
have some types of leadership development programmes in place. No matter where you are
staring from you will need to calibrate your starting point by examining each level and its’
progress against the guiding principles above. From this starting point you can then commence
defining needs and developing programme components to fill the gaps that fit your internal and
external conditions. Knowing where you are and where you want to go are two keys to
completing a journey successfully. This third step of defining how you will get there is not yours
alone and must be shared. Using Distributed Leadership as framework and tool, all of your
organisation can be prepared and ready to start on this journey.

The next page presents the key leadership development imperatives and principles in a model.

©3iQLeadership 2009 Commercial-in-Confidence Page 4

 3iQ Leadership Development Imperatives and Principles

Leadership Development Imperatives:

* Expect and grow leadership at every level and in every employee in your organisation
* Every team is a mutually supportive high performing team, make it that way
* Every Senior Manager is responsible for facilitating development of all individuals, teams and business divisions or units under their command

Individual Leadership Development Principles:

Everyone has access to self-leadership development opportunities from personal productivity to team leadership and beyond and are expected to
develop their leadership skills and individual and team performance
Everyone has a coach – typically their immediate supervisor
Everyone has an opportunity to choose and commit to clear positive guiding work values in the organisation and demonstrate these in their self-
leadership behaviours

Team Level principles:

* Everyone belongs to at least one and preferably not more than three teams at any one time
* Team goal setting and performance development is facilitated by the team leader
* Team goals and actions are decided by all members of the team and are framed on a simple balanced scorecard system developed by the team,
are coached and endorsed but not decided by the team leader
* Teams derive their feedback regularly from two primary sources: internal team members and external customers they serve
* Teams aim to meet the six guiding team principles for high-performing teams:
* Mutually supportive, open internal and external communications, strong internal trust, set their own objectives, gather their own data against
their metrics, and reflect on their performance frequently

Business/Enterprise Level principles:

Leadership involves senior managers communicating about and facilitating translation of forces and conditions in the external environment
to opportunities for growth and development of structures, roles and accountabilities, internal policies, strategies and commitments to
actions that reinforce individual and team commitments to the values and success of their teams, themselves and their organisation
Building and sustaining alignment between personal and organisational brands for everyone
Advancing the organisation’s contribution to its social leadership role and contributing to the communities it serves and draws talent

©3iQLeadership 2009 Commercial-in-Confidence Page 5