Collaborative Leadership Leadership can take many different forms, depending on the person and the situation in which it is needed. Collaborative leadership is a leadership style in which a leader brings together a large group of people, with diverse backgrounds, to make a productive decision and act on it. According to Chrislip and Larson (1994):…they are the ones who have the credibility to bring together the right people to create visions, solve problems and reach agreements on implementable actions. They are not the leaders who tell us what to do. Instead, they are the ones who help us work together constructively. (p. xx) This document aims to explain where collaborative leadership is used, what characteristics it has, and the advantages and disadvantages of its use. It will also summarize what types of people are collaborative leaders and the qualities they have that make them so. Collaborative leadership shares commonalities with both servant and transformational leadership. It is similar to servant leadership in the sense that the leader is there to help and be on an equal footing with the group he or she leads. It too encourages collaboration in its methods to achieve certain goals set by the leader. The use of collaboration often increases the sense of morale and trust within the group, which makes it similar to transformational leadership. This leadership style can be used in almost any context such as businesses or learning environments, but is seen most successfully in community groups and organizations. Some of the characteristics found in collaborative leadership are shared problem solving and decision making. To arrive at a mutual decision among group members, the...... middle of paper... should be implemented at the appropriate time and can be used as an alternative to other leadership methods. Leaders should be trustworthy, respectable, relatable and tolerant. A good example of a collaborative leader would be Dwight D. Eisenhower because he had many of these qualities. Works Cited Chrislip, D.D., & Larson, C.E. (1994). Collaborative leadership: How citizens and civic leaders can make a difference. San Francisco, California, United States: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Retrieved December 2, 2013 Linden, R. M. (2006, November/December). Dwight Eisenhower: Portrait of a Collaborative Leader. Virginia Review, 6. Retrieved December 3, 2013 University of Kansas. (2013, March 12). Section 11. Collaborative Leadership. Retrieved December 2, 2013, from Community Tool Box: http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/leadership-ideas/collaborative-leadership/main