Leadership through a single gigantic brain has become a passé. Be it organisations, countries or relationships — in today’s dynamic and competitive world the only way one can last is through collaboration. While it is an essential pre-requisite, it’s probably not sufficient if it’s not driven through leadership. It’s one of those obvious, in your face thing, which is painstakingly difficult to execute. But once it is executed and a culture built around same, an organisation’s growth trajectory changes.

The most crucial challenge is to evolve and create the atypical behaviours required to inspire people and teams to genuinely break through organisational compartmentalisation and make collaboration a competitive advantage. It’s essential for today’s leader to demonstrate the following qualities to build a collaborative culture.

Be true to her word: He or she has to stand by every word and every commitment they make and hold people accountable to theirs. The leader has to encourage a culture where sunshine is the best disinfectant. Where everyone speaks their mind — at the right time and with the intention of taking the organisation forward. She has to discourage mostly two kinds of behaviour — one where problems are constantly stated without resolution and the other in which there is constant agreement around issues yet no action or follow through later.

Be transparent in decision making: It’s important to communicate with a larger audience the need for a particular decision and the factors considered and trade-offs made while making the decision and the reasons for the same. Teams need to be empowered suitably and encouraged to make such decisions in similar manner. When that happens, organisations move at a faster pace and everyone feel involved.

Encourage cross functional exchanges: This involves sharing of ideas and involving teams across functions to contribute in each other’s development and improvements. It also entails holding each other accountable. Spirit of combining each other’s strengths and resources becomes a key driver to the organisation’s success. This also ensures that each function and division takes responsibility for the growth of the organisation and too much load is not put on a few people.

Take ownership of mistakes openly: He or she should acknowledge the mistakes made and communicate the factors that led to a decision as well as the assumption made. The leader should also seek feedback from others on how things could have been executed differently or how resources could have been better utilised.

Establish clear veto rights: It’s important to clearly identify who has the last say in a collaborative framework to keep things under control at any given point of time. Many collaborative outcomes can turn counterproductive and, hence, it is essential to have well-accepted rights assigned to certain people within the organisation to keep a check and to rein in disputes.

Reward and incentivise team work: Companies should align accountabilities through rewards and incentives to encourage working together effectively. It’s essential for an organisation to design metric in such a way that there is cohesive balance between their individual outcomes and collective outcomes.

Sharing information: Information dissemination in an easy-to-understand manner spurs imagination and throws up ideas, which help organisation gear up for the future. Connecting with internal employees and teams through platforms like Facebook and Google Plus is actually more meaningful, real time and cost-effective ways of breeding a culture of inclusivity.

Staffing as an industry is new to India. When we started out eleven years back we were a team of vibrant youth with energy and ideas and very little knowledge about the service we were about to offer to corporate India. We have one of India’s fastest growing companies and we have achieved this milestone through imaginative yet structured, collaborative leadership. While on one hand we made everyone working with us participatein shaping the future of the organisation, on the other we ensured that we walked the talk and provided them with the right tools, metrics, and soundboards to collaborate in the company’s growth. Balance between the two differentiates us from the rest.

(The author is Senior Vice-President and Co-Founder of TeamLease Services.)

Related Topics