How to Lead a Collaborative Team

This short article from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) makes a case for collaboration when teams in the workplace are… not working.

What do you do when teamwork doesn’t work? You can’t afford the loss of productivity, the depletion of energy, or the drain on the bottom line.

The solution is collaboration — which may seem impossible if your team is struggling.

“Collaboration is about creating an ownership culture. If you want your team to perform better, the members need to take care of it. People take care of what they own,” explains CCL former senior partner Edward Marshall.

Marshall, author of 2 books on collaboration in the workplace, says that building a collaborative team requires the leader to address what isn’t working, view trust as a must-have resource, and insist on behaviors that support collaborative principles.

This article was adapted from Edward Marshall’s book Transforming the Way We Work: The Power of the Collaborative Workplace.