The Collaborative Management Style: Definition and Pros & Cons

What is the Collaborative Management style? 

Collaborative management is all about alignment and mutual accountability between managers, supervisors and team members. Employees and managers share decision-making power and coordinate to reach common goals, rather than one person taking sole responsibility¹. This is a relatively new style of management, where the team leader facilitates discussion around projects, tasks, and decisions rather than making decisions in isolation⁵. A collaborative management style allows team members to combine their strengths, collectively overcome challenges and enhance the efficiency and productivity of the business². 

Pros of Collaborative Management 

Collective decision-making 

• With collaboration being the main focus of the business, employees will arrive at collective decisions to achieve goals². 

• Collaborative leadership encourages the input and opinions of each member of the organisation and ensures active participation in the decision-making process.  

• Decisions will be well thought out as multiple people have had a say and a chance to ensure all decisions align with the team or company goals. 

• Collaborative decisions can be made over a coffee. An informal setting may help everyone feel more comfortable making their voice heard, and invite more discussion in order to come up with solutions. 

Short delivery deadlines 

• Employees working collaboratively could result in shorter delivery times as multiple people working on projects will allow each person to focus on tasks suited to their strengths and spend less time compensating for weaknesses². 

• Collaborative organisations can also use the collective knowledge and experience of the group³, leading to less time spent having to review and revise tasks. This time saved can mean completing tasks more quickly and may help to boost in productivity. 

Equal responsibility

• Working in collaboration with others divides the workload equally amongst staff, ensuring everyone has equal responsibility and ownership on all projects. This will encourage all employees to be involved in projects as no one person has sole responsibility for a project or task².

• Collaborative management also ensures there is plenty of support from colleagues and managers when challenges arise during tasks. As a result, this may increase workplace efficiency as well as the quality of products and services. 

Cons of Collaborative Management 

Lack of accountability

• When the whole team is involved in decision-making, this can lead to ambiguity and lack of clarity on individual responsibilities³.  Individuals may avoid taking responsibility for mistakes and pass blame around the team. 

• Lack of accountability could also lead to team members avoiding their individual responsibilities and falling behind on tasks. 

Potential conflict 

• If all employees have equal input in decisions, managers may lack authority with their team. Team members may feel they have as much say as anyone else and do not need to be supervised³. 

• Collaborating with colleagues can lead to conflicts between team members due to lack of accountability, competition, or different styles of working. 

The collaborative management style can be effective when implemented well by a leader who seeks to work with others and give everyone an opportunity to contribute⁵. To avoid the pitfalls of this management style, leaders can define a clear vision, goal or scope for projects and tasks, and establish clear roles, responsibilities and processes for their teams³. Building rapport, trust and respect among team members is also important for effective collaboration and avoiding conflict in the workplace. 

To learn more about collaborative management visit the links below and check out our podcast episode full of insights on Collaborative Teamwork.  

1. https://www.oxfordleadership.com/collaborative-leadership-white-paper/ 
2. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/collaborative-management 
3. https://www.linkedin.com/advice/1/what-some-advantages-disadvantages-using-collaborative 
4. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-collaborating-conflict-management-36052.html 
5. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/collaborative-leaders  
6. https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/blog/collaboration/collaborative-leadership-top-down-team-centric#:~:text=Collaborative%20team%20leadership%20is%20a,takes%20responsibility%20for%20the%20whole. 

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