What is collaborative leadership and how is it more beneficial to rural communities?
Robert Greenleaf, researcher, philosopher and consultant, talks about “the servant-leader as servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.” Collaborative leadership flows out of the servant leadership. Ronald Heifitz, lecturer and consultant, and his colleagues at the Stanford Graduate School of Business say it well: collaborative leadership is needed when “problems require innovation and learning among the interested parties and, even when a solution is discovered, no single entity has the authority to impose it on the others.” That is the reality of communities.
