Collaborative Leadership Skills

Leadership can be defined in a variety of ways, but it is not often defined in the way that Monica approached her concept of environmentalism. Monica, the CEO, of a small, regional medical group decided to implement a "green" posture throughout the medical group's facilities. Monica did this by creating five different measures that employees could take on a daily basis in order to cut down on a number of wasteful practices. She then disseminated her ideals to the employees via their work email addresses.

Her approach did not show leadership, in fact, many employees would be turned off and less inclined to follow her lead than if she had approached this problem in a different manner. Some of the contributing factors to Monica's lack of leadership includes the display of arrogance that she shows by her approach. It could be surmised that Monica is displaying the fact that what she thinks is more important than what the employees think.

Some employees may take what Monica says in the manner in which she intends it, but other employees may not. This is evidenced by the fact that Monica receives an email that implies the employees are much too busy to take on additional edicts from the Executive Office. In a recent article regarding the collaborative efforts of individuals working together, the author states "these collaborators worked diligently and systematically to create, share, and merge their ideas" (Ingalls, 2011, p. 122).

In Monica's case, there was no effort made to create, share or merge any ideas except her own.

A few ideas that may have assisted Monica include the following; 1) she could have asked the employees beforehand (via a simple survey or questionnaire) what they thought of the "green" program, 2) she could have asked for input as to the many ways employees could help in turning the medical centers "green," and 3) she could have conducted meetings in which the ideas could have been presented to the employees in a much more acceptable manner than through an email.

This approach would have allowed Monica to garner feedback from the employees and it would have been much more palatable (in most cases) to the employees throughout the system. The proposed solutions present Monica with advantages that far outweigh the advantages of her approach. A recent study determined that "effective leaders are especially capable of fostering group cohesiveness and promoting efficacy in goal attainment" (Ruggieri, Abbate, 2013, p. 1171). If this is true, then what Monica did was the exact opposite of what an effective leader would have done.

Monica did not use the advantage(s) provided her through her position as CEO. Monica deigned to tell the employees exactly what they would do instead of asking them what they thought. Monica could have enlisted the collaborative efforts of her employees instead of just asking her assistant to help her come up with a list of requirements. Employees want to feel needed, and will usually follow a leader in the direction that he/she wishes to go, if that direction is communicated in a manner that allows for feedback.

Some of the unintended consequences of Monica's approach is that the employees may actually react in the exact opposite way than what.