Collaborative staff management

The term “collaborative” is composed of the Latin “co” for “together” and “laborare” for “work”. In the first place, he means “work together”. Transferred to the world of work, he takes account of the fact that the management is mostly concerned with highly heterogeneous team members.


Each employee is different


Of course: in the past "everyone was different". But there are developments that strengthen this diversity. Let us remember the fact that in a team more and more people from other cultures are sitting, who require sensitive leadership with an intercultural feeling of the finger.


X or Y: A question of generational association


The fact that employees have completely different personalities and belong to different age classes is not a new finding. What is new is that the people working in the field of information technology have very different attitudes towards the new media and communication technologies. According to a study conducted in the US on the basis of a management survey, generational factors play an important role in the question of how employee motivation can be significantly increased. Thus, there are group-specific settings that differ from generation to generation.


The boss as an inspirer


As a rule, the employees born between 1965 and 1980 as representatives of "Generation X" and the nearly 30-year-old Millennials are called "Generation Y". The Millennials are mostly the internet-minded employees, who can hardly imagine a life without a smartphone, Facebook and co. It is normal for them to receive a job application via Twitter and to exchange information about social networks during the meeting, for example, to examine whether a network partner can make a substantial contribution to the meeting theme. But must the "Twitter employees" be fundamentally different from older employees who have not grown up with the Internet?


Generate generic transitions


Probably yes. In addition, these young workers are accustomed to working together in projects and in the team, largely independent and self-responsible. They jump from team to team, from project to project - this is part of everyday life. This is less the case for the older team members.


The described developments have led to the emergence of a leadership style in which management is less guided by instructions, directives and control, but rather by the goal agreement to which the employee gives his consent. In the case of collaborative leadership, leadership is understood as an inspiration and an inspiration, as a pulse amplifier, whose task it is to keep employees out of the way, which could prevent them from achieving top performance.


An important aspect of the collaborative leadership style is dealing with diversity. Leadership should, indeed, be able to value and promote the diversity of employees. Different cultures, different age levels, colorful diversity of ethnic origin and nationality, with all the cultural differences that accompany them, the heterogeneity of personalities, worldviews, attitudes, opinions and views: Leadership conceives of this diversity as an opportunity Also creativity, rich ideas and a wide range of solutions.


The challenge is to coordinate this diversity and to guide it in constructive ways. Collaborative leadership requires immersion in a variety of employee environments. Leadership can deal with all the personalities and characters because it understands different perspectives and views the world from a variety of angles.


Leaders often have the experience that the X and Y employees have very different interests and motives, do a good job, and therefore have to be guided and motivated in different ways. For example,


These young employees pose a particular challenge for management, especially if the passport has a more mature birth date. Specifically, Generation Y employees always want to deepen their knowledge and skills and learn as much as possible. They sometimes maintain a laxer of information and knowledge.


What is important for them is not where the knowledge comes from. On the contrary, it is crucial that they are able to provide continuous training and how quickly they can obtain it. Exaggerated: you want to learn at all costs. In the Millennials, the collaborative leadership - ideally together with them - develops individual and personalized ways of learning, links: When a team is more and more employees from other cultures, the boss is asked for intercultural feeling of the fingers. Right: Generation Y works differently Most of the older employees. This is where managers have to recruit, in which the employees are involved in concrete projects and can use technology platforms.


The collaborative leadership style has its limits where it is exploited. Not every employee brings with them the maturity to use constructively the freedoms that the style of leadership opens to them. In the case of Generation Y, these employees sometimes produce "negative headlines" in their social networks - sometimes unintentionally. In many companies, there are already social media guidelines, which regulates who can publish what and where.


After all, the employees contribute decisively to the external presentation of the company through statements about their company on the net. Customers are reading these statements, which are detrimental to the perception of the company. The collaborative leader must then tighten the bridles a bit more and strengthened with control instruments. The collaborative style of leadership is not the only way to lead the way, but to all employees and to every leadership situation. However, there are leadership situations where it is above all this style of leadership which contributes to employee motivation


Limits of the collaborative leadership style


Not all of the collaborative leadership is new. Often, he resembles the situational leadership style, which also focuses on the individual, individual, and situation-oriented leadership. Collaborative leadership is, however, still more focused on the productive approach to diversity and takes into account the needs and expectations of younger employees, ie generation Y. The focus of his work is on performance improvement, management development and international training projects. It answers the question of how a company can achieve lasting performance improvements in leadership, sales and service.


Conclusion