There were several things that I
found interesting about the theory of shared leadership. Unlike traditional
views of leadership, shared leadership focuses on the internal dynamics and
relationships of mutual team members rather than the influence of a single
external individual. In this theory, leadership influence is distributed freely
among several different members of the team depending on the given
circumstances. While I can understand several of the key points made throughout
the paper, I believe that the authors are sometimes mistaking leadership for
proper team cooperation. When a team of individuals that share the same goals
and interests are put together—especially when there is a lack of an external
leader—there will inherently be moments where different individuals positively
effect the motivation and performance of others. How could a motivated group of
people sharing a common goal make any progress without doing otherwise? The entire
purpose of a team is to take the unique efforts, abilities, and desires of
different individuals and mold them together to achieve things that wouldn’t
have been possible for a single person. To say that the positive interactions
between these individuals are attributed to any sign of leadership is to
discount the very reasons why they were grouped together in the first place. That
is why the theory was described so fluidly and entailed the leadership roles as
consistently changing. If there were any sign of true leadership, I don’t
believe the roles would flow about so easily.
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