Collaborative leadership skills: The contribution of a shared leadership model in sustaining leadership longevity

Abstract

This is the supporting documentation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by publication. The research explores shared leadership and investigates its component parts in terms of leader and organizational longevity. A collection of the presented papers represent separate published research projects culminating in a 6D framework. Leadership – Default, Discretion, Dilemma, Deliberative Inquiry, Dialogue and Direction. The framework is equally divided into Individual and Corporate focus. It presents a collection of skills sets and attitudes which enable the modern leader to achieve more sustainable personal and organizational success. The methodology uses a balance of empirical and conceptual approaches which included a mix of primary interview and survey with a leaning towards qualitative data extraction. In depth semi-structured interviews from diagonal samples were used. These came from both local and international sources. An applied research approach was maintained for most relevance to leaders and the provided comment formed an inductive route on which to derive new theory. The results were analysed with an interpretivist approach. The research findings and conclusions show that developing a distinct awareness of leadership self and reactions contributes highly to the ability to serve the organizational need. Additionally, the research showed that considered approaches to achieve higher quality information from staff contributed to a better level of strategic alignment. The published shared leadership concepts and models benefitted from peer review in the academic community, in journals and at conference. These resulted in more robust contributions to modern opinions on distributed/collaborative leadership. The 6D framework, along with other original models from the author, have been used extensively with business people at different levels of leadership. Their use has contributed to the leadership impact and further understanding during times of great economic pressure, social and technological change.