Bridging competing demands through co-leadership? Potential and limitations

Abstract

Collective leadership arrangements in which two people jointly occupy a shared leadership role space are often thought to enable the bridging of competing demands and sources of expertise and legitimacy in pluralistic settings where multiple institutional logics coexist. This research investigates 20 co-leadership dyads in health care organizations to examine whether, when, and how co-leadership arrangements can enable the bridging of institutional logics. Empirical findings suggest that the potential for bridging through co-leadership arrangements is present, but that it may often be achieved through the assimilation of one side by the other rather than balanced integration of competing demands. We conclude that the challenge of collective leadership (and of co-leadership, in particular) may lie not only in developing smooth relations among multiple leaders and their followers, but also in maintaining and mobilizing the tensions that can make their collaboration most fruitful. We suggest that the collective leadership literature has often missed the significance of this central paradox: that collective leadership may be most needed where it is most difficult to achieve. When it seems to operate most smoothly, it is possible that it may not always be fulfilling its mission.