Tools for Collaborative Leaders: Hank Rubin

Think about the best teaching plan or course syllabus you've ever seen. No matter how thoroughly detailed and well-scripted it may have been, this document could not guarantee successful teaching; it's only with the addition of certain teacher dispositions and skills that we can begin to consider guarantees of teaching success.

In the same vein, the best-laid structural designs for school reform are nothing but paper until people choose to align their actions and resources in order to implement them. These people are the key stakeholders, decision-makers, and institutional leaders who influence what, how, for whom and with what resources education happens. School reform is an interinstitutional challenge. We may expect educators to become school reform leaders but, because we cannot reasonably expect school reform to be achieved by educators and educational institutions alone, our school reform leaders must be skilled at spanning boundaries and building relationships both inside and outside education's institutions.

Relationships define the context in which we can influence and align the behaviors of others; this is why we can exchange the phrase relationship management as a synonym for collaborative leadership. It is fundamental to an enlightened approach to leadership to understand that we do not manage people; we manage our relationships with people.

This article provides tools derived from observations of successful and failed collaborative leaders. There is still a great deal of empirical work that needs to be done to validate or reformulate the models derived from these observations. But at this point, there is scarcely any evidence-based literature on collaborative leadership; so the accompanying definitions, model, dimensions, and conceptual framework may be helpful resources for both reflective school reform leaders and researchers.

Because leadership happens in such diverse settings (e.g., in families, classrooms, districts, and school boards), the following definitions provide a common language that we can apply in all contexts:

Collaboration: A collaboration is a purposeful relationship in which all parties strategically choose to cooperate in order to accomplish a shared outcome. Because of its voluntary nature, the success of a collaboration depends on one or more collaborative leader's ability to build and maintain these relationships.

Collaborative leader: You are a collaborative leader once you have accepted responsibility for building--or helping to ensure the success of--a heterogeneous team to accomplish a shared purpose. The ability to convene and sustain relationships influencing individuals and institutions—and the ability to find and sustain common self-interests in the diverse missions and goals of independent actors--defines the effective collaborative leader.

Relationship management: Relationship management is what a collaborative leader does. It is the purposeful exercise of behavior, communication, and organizational resources to affect the perspective, beliefs, and behaviors of another person (generally a collaborative partner) so as to influence that person's relationship with you and your collaborative enterprise.

There is both analytic and predictive value in understanding the phases through which collaborations grow. We can draw comparisons to our own civic boards and coalitions in order to help interpret why certain things work (or don't work), and we can take planful steps so that the progress of our boards and coalitions corresponds to the phases experienced in successful collaborations. The Life Cycle diagram (above) tracks the phases through which successful collaborations pass. What follows is a brief introduction of questions and considerations that reflect the action occurring at each phase.

Why Collaborate? What do you really want to achieve? Is the goal best achieved through collaboration? Have you carefully considered the questions of how and why a collaborative approach improves the likelihood of accomplishing your goals?

Outcomes? Decision Makers? What are the targeted outcomes? Who are the essential decision makers? Did you take the time to refine your thinking about your general goal(s) so that the outcomes you hope to target are clear enough to make it possible for you to identify by name the decision makers who control or influence your ability to succeed? When decision makers who were not likely to participate were selected, did you identify alternatives (such as individuals who (1) directly influence these decision makers, (2) are themselves desirable members of the coalition, and (3) are likely to respond favorably to recruitment?

Stakeholders? Who are the stakeholders who need to be involved? Did you identify by name the full range of essential stakeholders, individuals, and organizations with knowledge, history, celebrity, credibility, influence, or resources, or who otherwise have a stake in the outcome(s) you are targeting?

Frame and Recruit. Did you develop a unique and tailored strategy to recruit each prospective partner? Did your preplanning, include consideration of who--from the perspective of each prospective partner—should make the overture and what--from the perspective of each prospective partner--will satisfy the prospect's self-interests and enthuse him or her about participating in your collaboration? Has attention been paid to engage each partner in (a) discussing and reaching at least some general agreement on the mission and goals of the collaboration and (b) solidifying the connection of each partner's self-interests with the emerging mission and operation of the collaboration?

Leaders, Structure, Roles, and Rules. Has there been reflection on the question of whether formalization of leadership, structure, functional roles, and operating rules would help or hurt the collaborative process? Has the collaboration strategically moved toward formality, with attention paid to ensure that all partners are comfortable and invested in the structure, leadership, roles, and rules? Or did the collaboration move too abruptly or prematurely, scaring away some partners who have attended and could contribute to the collaboration but who may not have felt adequately connected to the collaboration or supported by their organizations to formally commit in this fashion? Were routine meeting dates established for the collaboration? Have routine communications been developed and deployed to keep all essential players informed of the coalition's work?

Develop an Action Plan. Did the collaboration develop strategic plans with benchmarks so that all its members know where the collaboration is going and can measure where it's been? Have partners been encouraged to discuss the collaboration's action plan in terms of how specific portions connect to the institutional missions and self-interests that they represent?

Begin With Successes. Did the collaboration begin with short-term plans that targeted successes around either its most urgent or least controversial goal(s)? Has the collaboration's action plan been built on this (these) early success(es)?

Build Bonds Between Partners. How has the collaboration paid attention to building the essential bonds between collaborative partners? Has an internal environment of trust, loyalty, and high professionalism been created early on so that, later on, partners are willing to make the compromises that will certainly be demanded in the context of collaborative decision-making?

Celebrate Successes. What has been done to make sure that collaborative partners feel good about their continued participation in the collaboration? Has the collaboration celebrated its successes with internal recognitions to strengthen these bonds? Has external publicity been used as a tool to build momentum, support, and pride among partners and key external constituencies?

Assess, Adjust, and Reinforce Bonds. Do leaders really know if individual partners feel well connected to and supportive of the collaboration? How does this collaboration routinely measure, adjust, and reinforce the bonds between collaborative partners in the collaboration?

Goal-Centered Accountability. How does the collaboration measure its progress towards goals? Does it have clear indicators of success? Do all members of the collaboration know these indicators? Are they reviewed and updated routinely? How does what is measured relate to what is done?

Revisit and Renew Mission. Are the collaboration's partners aware and routinely reminded of the mission and goals of the collaboration? Does the collaboration stop to revisit its mission, especially at significant benchmarks? Is the collaboration flexible enough to explore the pros and cons of all possible options, including (a) modifying the mission and/or operating ground rules, (b) retaining them intact, (c) expanding or redirecting the mission, (d) taking a vacation, or (e) disbanding?

During the last two decades of observation, collaborative work, and interviews, the following list of 24 dimensions has emerged as characteristics represented in the work and among the leadership of successful collaborations. It is important to note that no one can expect all these dimensions to reside in any one leader. These are both the ideals toward which we aspire as we strive to improve our own abilities to build and lead collaborative initiatives and the characteristics we will seek in the collaborative partners we recruit. They are starting points for self- (and group) assessment, targets for self- (and group) improvement, and an outline of the competencies around which we may begin to build curricula for teaching the skills of collaborative leadership.

In a practical sense, the best we can do is to first aim for personal mastery of those dimensions that are irreducibly essential and then work to develop close and sustained leadership relationships with collaborative partners who have and can contribute the missing skills.

[For a more thorough description of the 24 dimensions briefly described below, please see Collaborative Leadership: Developing Effective Partnerships in Communities and Schools, chapter 7.]

Strategic Thinking: The effective collaborative leader is a strategic, logical, and systemic thinker who understands the steps that must be taken to make things happen and who can engage collaborative partners in a productive and efficient planning process.

Asset Based Perspective: Collaborative leaders see assets to be aligned where others see disjointed resources and players. They help others see and share a vision of what can be accomplished together where others see a problem to be overcome. They see assets as the foundation upon which sustained collaborations are built. An asset-based perspective shapes both the dialogue between partners and the targets that they set.

Professional Credibility: The purpose of professional credibility is to validate the appropriateness and generate confidence in your professional colleagues' decisions to join a portion of their visions and reputations with you; to get professional colleagues to invest, first, in you and then with you at the level needed to accomplish a desired purpose. Credibility is earned by having: (1) substantive mastery, (2) peer status, and (3) professional integrity.

Timing the Launch: Whether a collaboration is launched in response to a crisis or in order to plan and carry out a long-standing vision, the timing of its launch will influence who comes on board and how best to organize the initiative.

Recruiting the Right Mix: Nothing shapes the culture, process, and outcomes of a collaborative initiative as much as decisions related to who is asked to join it.

Interpersonal Communication Skills: Communication sits at the center of all human relationships. Collaboration, as relationship management, demands the skillful use of interpersonal communication. Successful collaborations maintain a climate in which honest and productive communication occurs among partners.

Consensus Building: Consensus building connects the individual and institutional self-interests of partners to the goals and activities of the collaboration. Some collaborations work well on a consensus model; some succeed with a majoritarian model. Within either model, it is always beneficial in public sector collaborations for leaders to have the skills to build the largest possible consensus around action before it is taken.

Diplomacy: It is safe to say that few institutional leaders will sacrifice the good of their home organizations for the benefit of an external collaboration. The diplomatic function of a collaborative leader is to strike an ongoing balance between the competing and evolving interests of individual member institutions and the interests of the collaboration as a whole.

Understanding the Rudiments of Each Sector: Effective collaborative leaders not only reach beyond the limits of their own organizations, they reach across professions and across the boundaries that define the nonprofit, government, and for-profit sectors. Most of us need to expand our limited knowledge of others' professions and sectors so as to be able to help us find mutual self-interests, to build effective relationships, and to understand the conditions that affect the decisions and needs of our collaborative partners.

Data-Driven Leadership: In the 21st century, data rules. Technology, standards, and mandated accountability are unrelenting taskmasters that drive leaders and educators to numbers, research, and best practices.

Psychosocial: Understanding People: The most elemental skill required of collaborative leaders is the interpersonal skill and empathy needed to make and sustain strong linkages between people. The tools begin with built-in radar that detects the personal self-interests people bring into a relationship, that deduces each person's level of commitment to the relationship, and that observes and interprets the relevant psychosocial rhythms and styles of the each individual. This leadership challenge is more complicated for collaborative leaders who are not only dealing with individuals as complex psychosocial organisms but also as complex psychosocial organisms who are representatives of complex institutions with highly individualized structures, needs, histories, and institutional self-interests.

Institutionalizing the Worry: This is, perhaps, the most undervalued, often ignored, and important dimension of collaborative leadership. It is the dimension that guarantees that somebody is worried about the success of the collaboration (that the collaboration will not disintegrate for lack of attention). It is a self-possessed tenacity on the part of the collaborative leader, making sure that the collaborative venture is fed, nourished, and attended to during each phase of its development. It is figuratively---if not formally--written into the job description of the collaborative leader or a delegated agent. It is the practical response to the acknowledged truth that if no one person accepts responsibility for the success of any process, cause, project, or collaborative initiative then, surely, it will be displaced to lower and lower levels on everyone's list of priorities until, at last, it disappears altogether. This is especially true in collaborations since all institutional representatives have primary responsibility and loyalty to their home institutions.

Group Process: The effective collaborative leader is (1) an environmental engineer, (2) a group facilitator, and, all too often, (3) a grunt operative.

Resource Development: This is a straightforward dimension of any contemporary leadership post but it is more complicated when applied to collaborations because of our responsibility to enhance the capacity of our collaborative partners and to never hurt or impede their ability to raise the resources they need for their home institutions.

Marketing/Communications: Marketing is the planned and managed dialogue between a corporate entity's internal and external decision makers, stakeholders, and customers. "Communications" is the name we give to the same function in the public sector. Our job as collaborative leaders is to make sure that this dialogue is productive, timely, and inclusive.

Technological Savvy: Desktop and Internet technology make communication spontaneous, easy, accessible, and cheap. It makes collaboration possible at tremendous speed, efficiency, and breadth.

Managerial Skill: Collaborative leaders are called upon to be effective and efficient managers of their organizations as well as of their collaborations.

Systems Thinking: Collaborative leaders view their world as the complex interaction of systems--people within organizations within coalitions within communities.

Entrepreneurism: Collaborative leaders are always creating, adapting, and innovating in order to establish and maintain their relationships with the individuals (interpersonal entrepreneurism) and institutions (institutional entrepreneurism) in their collaborations.

Vision-Centered Leadership: In the back of the mind--and on the tip of the tongue--of every collaborative leader is the question, "Does this help us achieve our goal(s)?" As our collaborations' institutional worriers and strategic thinkers, our job is to ensure that each step our group takes advances us towards our shared goal(s). When our partners wander, get distracted, or slow down, it's up to us to raise the rallying vision like a flag to sustain the focus and momentum of the collaboration.

Integrity: Collaboration is like marriage, with a courtship during which the intentions and integrity of both parties are tested until each is satisfied that a commitment is safe and warranted.

Spirituality: As collaborative leaders, we influence the spirit and worldview of those who join the collaboration. On the surface, we are expected to radiate an energy of achievability---a can-do attitude--that generates a confidence in those around us that the time they are investing will yield the results we all desire. At a deeper level, we create within our collaborative framework a culture of coherent values, commitment to egalitarian principles, and belief in the Tocquevillian observation that we accomplish more good together than we ever could alone.

Commitment to Diversity: Collaborations that don't reflect the diversity of their constituencies in the context of America's sweeping demographic transformation run the immediate and fatal risk of being illegitimate, unresponsive, or worse.

Charisma: Effective collaborative leaders exude a special type of charisma that attracts and sustains the emotional desire of others to work with them. But never confuse charisma with dynamism. Charismatic leaders are not necessarily dynamic, although they might be. What makes effective collaborative leaders charismatic is the ability to attract and sustain the emotional desire of other people to want to work with them--to like working with them. It is connected to integrity, dependability, and a general can-do optimism but is really an affective quality that is hard to define and can only be observed--and, therefore, taught--through the eyes of other people.

Conceptual Framework

We are building our understanding of collaboration together. Teachers, parents, administrators, researchers, theoreticians, and students all have something to contribute to this developing conversation. This is an important conversation, at the heart of the work of every educator and every reform-minded decision-maker. The following framework provides a common language for practitioners and scholars, encouraging us to examine each dimension during each phase of a collaboration's life cycle.

(the above figure is available in PDF format).