Community arts organizations regularly look to the communities that they serve to help make decisions about organizational direction. But what does that type of distributed leadership look like within an organization, for the decisions that are made on a daily basis? To explore that question, the "Hewlett Foundation commissioned Open Mind Consulting and Informing Change to develop a set of case studies examining how some nonprofit organizations are incorporating distributed leadership into their organizational structure and practices."
According to the Hewlett Foundation, "The authors of the case studies define distributed leadership along a spectrum, with a sole individual making all decisions—high-stakes or not—at the least distributed end, using information that is exclusive to them (i.e., leadership is singular). This person, in turn, bears complete responsibility for those decisions. At the most distributed end, many people at an organization have a voice in making decisions, including those that are high stakes. Just as these people have access to information that enables them to effectively contribute to these decisions, they also share responsibility for their decisions’ ripple effects."
Learn more and read the full case studies here.
Published: November 20, 2018