Distributed leadership is a newer approach that managers from both the public and private sectors can use to involve employees in solving defined management tasks - from planning to project and case management to professional sparring. The benefits are in terms of well-being and results, while the pitfalls lie in not properly aligning direction, framework and role distribution.
Project manager responsible for implementing a new IT system. Case manager who distributes and prioritizes cases between colleagues. Onboarding manager who arranges induction courses for new employees and books colleagues to introduce specific areas and tasks. Shift planner who has access to book and change everyone's calendars. Coordinator who has an overview of the team's tasks and picks up loose ends and ties them together.
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Helping to solve the manager's tasks
What these functions have in common is that they are management tasks performed by an employee without management responsibility. This is called 'distributed leadership'. Here, a formal manager chooses to distribute some of their tasks to an employee who is involved in carrying them out.
And it's something more than half of public sector leaders use, according to a 2017 study by the Danish Leadership Commission.
Distributed leadership is not a brand new practice, but has been on the agenda, among other things, as centralization and large leadership gaps, especially in the public sector, have gained ground in Denmark over the past 10-15 years.
- To put it bluntly, distributed leadership focuses on the management ACTIVITY rather than the management ROLE and on solving the tasks rather than focusing on who solves them. "We can talk about distributed leadership tasks in situations where the task is not just part of the employee's regular portfolio and where it provides an opportunity to influence peers," explains Christian Nyvang Qvick.
