The Modern Leadership Issue - 14

Creating environments conducive
to load sharing
A challenge with adopting interdependent leadership today is that cultural norms and
organizational designs can make close relationships and high-trust environments feel
like you're swimming upstream. Here are a few thoughts for leaders to consider as you
embrace interdependent leadership.
Consider your incentives-Business is a team sport.
Often organizations lean on extrinsic motivators like bonuses or recognition based
on individual achievement. Depending on the incentive structure, this can damage
a culture of load sharing by putting individuals and teams in competition with each
other instead of encouraging cooperative support. Be intentional with how and why
you choose to implement individual incentives; when you do use them, focus on
ways to recognize teams and collaboration.
Consider strengths-There's no " I " in team.
Interdependent leaders have the courage to own that they aren't " the expert " on
everything. They hire people for their strengths and expertise, and they rely on the
strengths of their team to meet the opportunities (and challenges) facing the
organization. Consider where you can step back from the spotlight and build up
people on your team to step into their power. You're not giving up power, you're
gaining power by sharing it-that's the power of interdependence.
Consider transparency-Default to open.
Google has a principle that drives much of their operational model: " Default to open. "
While the truth can hurt or take more training to support, being more transparent is
one of the most empowering things you can do for a team. When people learn that it's
okay to share as openly as safely possible, it fosters a trusting environment that is
more conducive to sharing needs and concerns.
Consider team design-It takes a village.
Load sharing can feel unsustainable (and perhaps unfair) to leaders within hierarchical
structures. The most resilient organizational models embrace multiple bonds to
support the needs of its people. As reported by Corporate Rebels1
, new progressive
models seek to increase load sharing by moving away from structures that assign many
direct reports to one leader. They're also adopting multiple partnership relationships
where responsibility is shared. For example, TiER1 is a role-based organization that
organizes in agile teams with multiple alignments throughout the organization to
increase the number of leaders with which any TiER1er can load share. Our model is
designed to promote agility and resilience across the organization.
1 10 Progressive Organizational Structures Developed by Real Companies, Joost Minnaar, 2022
Consider past experiences-Unlearning is hard.
Interdependent leadership goes against the grain of most leaders' experiences in the
workplace. Many have not experienced what interdependent leadership looks or feels
like, and the " higher up " we go, the less we're expected to be interdependent. Highperforming
leaders are balancing expectations to deliver results regardless of what's
going on (that's why we've been entrusted this leadership position) or the personal toll
it can take on our health (physical and mental). Managing that balancing act can lead
to destructive coping strategies that harm the leader as well as their family members,
close friends, or colleagues. If you've only seen this way modeled, it's hard to imagine
a different way to be-and you may even be incentivized or directed to not take the
time or energy to do it. Try opening up to your team when you feel torn or stuck and
acknowledge that you're looking for a more humane way-and invite them into the
problem space with you.

https://www.corporate-rebels.com/blog/progressive-organizational-structures

The Modern Leadership Issue

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