Awakening to Co-Leadership
Recently, I’ve spoken with executive leaders who are struggling and middle managers who don’t want to move into higher leadership positions because they witness the struggle and don’t want it for themselves.
I can relate. In the nonprofit sector, I’ve served as a volunteer and Board member, and worked as an entry-level staff member, program director, and vice president. And in the role of vice president, I never had ambitions to become the CEO. I spent years with a demanding, stressful workload, helping to stabilize and guide my organization through significant expansion. I also had a front-row seat to a CEO role that was even more demanding. Despite being encouraged repeatedly to pursue that role, I declined. I didn’t want it.
Employee well-being is often talked about and researched, though it remains out of reach for far too many. Leader well-being, on the other hand, is often flat-out ignored and can feel taboo to bring up.
Leaders are typically paid more and hold official power and authority in their organizations. For this reason, we often view leadership solely as a privileged position to hold. Because of these privileges, we reason, leaders’ health and well-being don’t matter. To speak of it can conjure feelings of guilt and invite criticism.
Yet, leaders face unique challenges with chronic pressures from many directions. Being in a leadership position can be isolating, overwhelming, and stressful–for any leader, but particularly for those who genuinely care about their mission and team, and for those who are breaking barriers in their fields related to race, gender, disability, etc.
It’s easy to discount the woes of leaders based on the stereotypical image of wealthy executives, but in reality, 99.9% of U.S. businesses are small businesses and almost half of private sector employees are employed by small businesses. 92% of nonprofit organizations operate with less than $1 million a year. That’s a lot of leaders who don’t fit the Wall Street/Silicon Valley stereotype.
Also, talking about leader well-being doesn’t replace the conversation about employee well-being. Leader well-being impacts organizational culture, which impacts employee health, and structural barriers to well-being exist for both groups.
This issue is both/and, not either/or.
Awakening to Co-Leadership
During my time as a nonprofit VP, I became aware of co-leadership models when an acquaintance shared about her work on social media. She was the co-leader of her nonprofit and I was immediately intrigued.
“Co-leadership is two or more people in charge of a team or group. Co-leaders share ownership of the goals of their team yet divide the roles and responsibilities.”
I didn’t want to be “the” CEO, but being a co-leader? That sounded more accessible and frankly, similar to what I was already doing. I reached out to my acquaintance and we set up a call to discuss how co-leadership worked at her nonprofit. Then a schedule conflict arose, she canceled the call and I never rescheduled. Life and work got in the way, and since it was more a thought experiment than anything, I let it go.
Cut to present day, and co-leadership models are increasingly attempted and researched as an alternative to the status quo:
“The single-executive model has long dominated organizational structures in all three sectors: business, government, and philanthropy. Of course, examples of co-leadership and distributed leadership models have always existed, providing important foils to the default, pyramid-shaped hierarchy. However…a push to reject organizational structures that are seen as overly burdensome, regressive, and even harmful is gaining ground.” - “New Organizational Structure Models for Nonprofits,” The Johnson Center
Despite this emergence, co-leadership is far from the norm. And most of the time, when I bring up the idea to CEOs and Executive Directors in conversations around the challenges of sole leadership, the most common response I get is that these models don’t work.
Is that true? Or have we not given them a fair chance?
Also: is the current model working?
Recent surveys indicate that similar percentages of executives and employees are struggling in areas related to health and well-being.
A recent Race to Lead report from the Building Movement Project shows a decline in interest in nonprofit CEO roles due to the responsibilities of the role and it being incompatible with desired work/life balance.
Ford’s 2024 Trends Survey finds that 77% of employed people prioritize a balanced personal life over their advancement at work, and approximately 60% of American millennials would be willing to take a 20% pay cut to achieve a lifestyle that prioritizes quality of life.
Generational and global shifts are calling for different ways of working, and co-leadership is one of many practices that deserves our consideration.
“Under the burdens of overwork and isolation, and often as a response to calls in the sector for more leadership opportunities for women and people of color, many nonprofits and foundations are now adopting co-leadership or distributed leadership models. These organizations are embracing a reorganization of decision-making stresses and a redistribution of work.” Source: Innovations in Talent Investment for Individuals, Organizations, and Communities
It’s one thing to recognize shared or distributed leadership models as an option that could work and to feel that you don’t currently have the knowledge and resources to make that change. It’s another thing to outright reject alternative models based on beliefs that are shaped by traditions that don’t align with present or future needs.
As with many things, our perceptions of what is possible are shaped by current norms–what we know and what we see around us.
Leadership at Home
Simultaneous to my exploration of co-leadership in the workplace, I’ve had many conversations with women friends struggling with stressors related to the division of labor at home.
As it turns out, shared leadership is not only rejected in the workplace. It often remains illusory at home.
Much has been written about the disproportionate mental, emotional and physical load women in heterosexual relationships bear when it comes to managing a household and children. While women have advanced in the workforce over multiple generations, the scales still have not balanced at home, and women partnered with men are often performing a disproportionate double duty.
Why am I harping on heterosexual relationships? Because research shows that in same-sex and queer relationships, the division of labor is more egalitarian and based on interest, ability and time, rather than on gender norms. How rational!
Societally, we’re still working through a process of rejecting patriarchal family structures that placed a husband as the sole head and decision-maker of the household, while a wife carried out the labor of homemaking and child-rearing. In the work of disrupting these norms, many couples are struggling to replace the old model with a new one. Culturally, we’re caught in household leadership limbo.
Like many of my friends, I’m a woman in a long-term domestic partnership with a man. And while I can identify in some ways with the typical struggle of heterosexual household division of labor, my partner and I apparently buck the norm in many ways. Interestingly, as I read more about co-leadership in the workplace, I started recognizing it as the default in our house.
Here are some co-leadership practices that my partner and I employ:
Clear Roles and Division of Labor: Each of us has areas that we lead in based on our interests and strengths. For example, my partner takes the lead in meal-planning, groceries, and cooking, while I take the lead in laundry and cleaning. We share other responsibilities equally, like yard work, home improvement, and pet care. (Note: this is not an exhaustive list.)
Communication: Each weekend, we talk together to make a shared to-do list. This is an opportunity to assess our shared and individual priorities and make sure we collaboratively address them. Neither of us expects the other to read our minds, and to-do lists don’t just include chores; they also include things like resting, exercise and hobbies we want to make time for. We strive to balance what needs to get done with making sure each others’ needs get met.
Collaboration: Though we have specific areas in which each of us leads, we frequently assist and support each other. For example: while my partner initiates the meal-planning process, we always talk together about what we’ll eat for the week. (This is especially important because I have a chronic illness with changing dietary restrictions.) Sometimes he goes grocery-shopping on his own and other times we go together, depending on schedules and workload. While I take the lead on the laundry, we often work together to get it done.
Goal-setting, Accountability and Growth: We routinely hold “partners meetings” where we discuss bigger picture goals related to health, work, finances, etc. There’s no Robert's Rules of Order, but we have been known to use an excel spreadsheet and project management software to keep track of things from one meeting to the next. When we struggle to reach our goals, we dive deep and discuss ways we can support one another in overcoming barriers.
It may not sound romantic, but co-leadership at home is way better than the alternative, which often results in disconnection, chronic tension, and built-up resentment. The common threads underlying our co-leadership strategies? Clarity about the areas we’re responsible for, open communication and collaboration, and mutual respect and support.
We aren’t rigidly divided in our roles, expecting one another to have all of the information for particular projects, or to single-handedly pull off every task we lead. We’re simply a team making a life together and using our collective capacity in the best way we can. We’re co-leading our household and I can’t imagine it any other way.
And though the example I’ve shared is a two-person co-leadership model, that’s not the limit. Co-leadership is any leadership structure made up of more than one person and can be applied in any relationship or shared living arrangement.
“Co-leadership asks more of leaders than the ‘command and control’ style did. You have to give and receive clear feedback. You have to voice your expectations. You must be accountable for your actions and what you said you would do. You have to learn to communicate more effectively. You have to learn to address conflict in the healthiest way possible without devolving into gossip or coalition building. You must learn to share power and privilege, as well as breakdown and failure.” - The Surprising Benefits Of Co-Leadership
Hmmm, that description of co-leadership sounds a lot like a healthy relationship.
So if this is not only possible at home, but is #goals, why is it not the goal in the workplace?
The vast majority of organizations are structured with a sole head of the workplace (side eye to patriarchy) and we’re led to believe this is how it must be, though what single person has all of the skills, abilities, and capacity that most CEO roles demand?
Co-leadership models are certainly not a panacea or silver bullet, nor are they perfect. Establishing a new leadership structure within an organization requires sufficient investment and intentional change management. Co-leadership requires clarity around shared goals and standards, emotional intelligence and a high level of trust-building among co-leaders. But these models do allow for possibilities that sole leadership does not, like sharing the weighty responsibilities of leadership and building leadership capacity that promotes health for leaders, employees and organizations. For these reasons, they’re worth exploring.
As the context of work and home continues to evolve, it’s time to rethink old approaches to hierarchy and leadership that aren’t serving us. Adopting co-leadership in either sphere starts with the courage to acknowledge what’s not working and a willingness to imagine a new and different way of structuring leadership to build healthier relationships, homes, and workplaces.
Interested in learning more about co-leadership? Here’s some additional reading:
The Surprising Benefits of Co-Leadership
Boomer Leaders Should Learn to Share Their Power — Like I Did
New Organizational Structure Models for Nonprofits
How to Make Co-Leadership Work
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