A Few Thoughts About Co-Leadership (after doing it for 12 years)

Several years ago, the Georgia Center for Nonprofits asked me about what I had learned during my time sharing co-leadership at Trees Atlanta. Following are a few of the lessons I learned.

Check your ego at the door.

Shared leadership between two strong individuals will not work if one person always wants the recognition.

Arranged marriages add to the challenges.

There may be some situations where a board wants to appoint two strangers to share leadership, but I don’t think it is an ideal approach. Our relationship worked in large part because we had already established respect and admiration for each other, and had worked together to fully vet the structure and decide how we thought it would work. It was never about us, but about the organization.

Value each other’s differences.

I’d be lying if I said that we danced into work every day completely in tune with each other. My co-leader was a visionary, while I’m all about execution. Sometimes it was hard to find the common ground, but we didn’t give until we did. We knew that we could accomplish more together, so we always tried hard to understand and value the other’s point of view.

Two people can accomplish the work of three.

When we first started as co-executive directors, many people remarked that it took two of us to take the place of the original ED. In fact, we found that two of us could get more done than the sum of us both. Not only could we attend simultaneous meetings separately, doubling our presence, but we were more efficient because we could focus on work that we do best. Also, we didn’t postpone work that may be cumbersome for one of us, because typically the other one would find it interesting and keep the momentum going.

Someone’s always got your back.

One of the best perks of shared leadership: You are never alone with your problems.

Regardless of who was responsible for a particular issue, we were both ready to jump in and assist. We each worked hard to evaluate problems and identify opportunities, but it’s difficult for one person to match the energy and ideas we could generate when discussing things jointly. And on those days that didn’t go the way we wanted them to, there was always someone we could share a meal with (or a drink!) who could understand our frustrations and help put them in perspective.

Original version published by www.gcn.org