Distributed leadership is very much a vogue term these days, even though its meaning is somewhat nebulous. A common thread is to enable others to contribute to leadership – however defined – to better help bring about desired organizational results.

But how do you create distributed leadership? In particular, what kinds of actions help to open-up space in which others can demonstrate leadership? Is it best to “stand back” on the expectation that others will come forward? Or is some form of more active intervention more likely to prompt leadership action from others?

This question came up indirectly in a workshop I facilitated last week.

One participant, we’ll call him Joe, is a department head in a medium to large-sized organization. As a result of a restructure, there’s the possibility his group will be expanded to include another smaller department. Or, it may be the smaller department ends up going elsewhere; this has yet to be decided. But Joe understands that if he wants his department to absorb the smaller outfit, he will have top executive support for this.

Joe is positive about the idea of the smaller department coming in with his; he would like to see it happen - providing they bring with them significant business and resources and that there is a depth of support in the smaller group for coming on-board. The senior managers of the smaller group have told Joe they’d like to join with his group.

In the workshop group, we were practicing expressing our views on issues relationally to others; to give voice to the issue in a way that recognizes the different perspectives on it (rather than being fully captive to our own view) and to divulge some of what we might have held back on till now but which is relevant to the conversation.

In his practice presentation to the workshop group – a rehearsal of what he might actually say to the members of the smaller department – Joe talked about the possibility of amalgamation and about the smaller department needing to bring with them business, resources, and commitment.

What he didn’t talk about, though, was his personal feelings about the idea of the smaller department joining his group.

When asked about this, Joe replied that he had been deliberately ambiguous. He wanted to see leadership come from the other group; he wanted them to make a case for amalgamation without him showing his hand.

Is Joe’s approach likely to encourage leadership action on the part of the people in the smaller department?

In the workshop session another participant spoke in support of Joe’s approach. This participant saw Joe’s ambiguity as creating a space into which the smaller department members could step.

But would it necessarily play out this way in practice?

Conceivably, the members of the smaller department might have thought that Joe was ambivalent about the two groups merging. Possibly they could go to a lot of work and find he was disinterested. It might be better to wait for a bit and see what signs emerged?

So an interesting possibility arises. Both Joe and the other group want to combine forces. But if Joe holds back and the smaller department doesn’t step forward, a result could be that the smaller group goes off and merges with another part of the organization. In such a situation both Joe and the smaller department have in effect acted to bring about a result that neither wants.

A paradox is that to develop distributed leadership – others stepping up to contribute – we may need to create a degree of “infrastructure”, some lightweight support to make it easier for others to initiate action.

One implication is that Joe, or any leader wanting to bring about leadership more broadly, needs to first contemplate his or her personal leadership behavior. In Joe’s case, the challenge could be to reveal a little more about what he really aspired to – and what evidence he needed to be satisfied that the merger would work.

 There’s some truth to the line about leadership coming from within.