Facilitative Leadership
Uploaded by
hasminFacilitative Leadership
Uploaded by
hasminFacilitative
Leadership
Facilitative leadership is all about maximizing others’ contributions.
Facilitative leadership is about aligning people in the same direction, so they can achieve a
shared goal.
The decisions are made together as a group.
Facilitative leadership invites and empowers others as opposed to commanding and
directing.
There are four behavior
characteristics of a facilitative
leader.
Actively listening and seeking to understand
Actively listening and seeking to understand.
This includes things like listening intently…asking questions…and
paraphrasing what you heard.
Providing clarity and purpose
Providing clarity and purpose.
Facilitative leaders identify the problem that needs to be solved. They ask
and seek answers to “Why are we doing this? Do you know what you’re
trying to achieve?
Connecting the dots.
Connecting the dots.
This means making sense of all the
pieces of the project or work effort, and
connecting all the players (project team,
sponsors, business stakeholders, change
agents, etc.)How does one area impact
another? A facilitative leader stimulates
creative thinking through brainstorming,
communication, and other activities that
connect the elements of a team or
organization.
Influencing collaboration.
Influencing collaboration.
This involves getting all the
players to work together to
solve a problem — encouraging
group participation.
Can you be a facilitative leader—even though you’re not the
boss and have a specific team and role—and still remain neutral
and fair?
Yes, you can.
Asking clarifying questions doesn’t put you on one side of the fence or the other.
Bringing all the key players into the meeting doesn’t make you biased.
Ensuring that all meeting participants have an opportunity to share their thoughts, does not mean you’re leaning
one way or another.
Neutrality does not mean inaction or passiveness. Neutral facilitative leadership can surface solutions that
make the team stronger and help reach organizational goals.
Can you be a facilitative leader?
Practicing the four tenets of a facilitative leader can move you from being
“merely” a facilitator to being a respected facilitative leader.
And it matters. Because facilitative leaders:
◦ Get everyone on the same page by applying an integrated lens.
◦ Draw from the strengths of all team members and impacted areas of the business.
◦ Gather divergent views and facts before deciding on a plan of action.
◦ Obtain greater commitment and buy-in from impacted stakeholders.
◦ Drive creativity, innovation, and brainstorming, resulting in better solutions.
◦ Becoming a facilitative leader will make you more successful because the work you lead will be more
successful.
Facilitative leadership is about aligning people in the same direction, so
they can achieve a shared goal. What makes facilitative leadership
different from the other forms of leadership is the involvement of others
at the decision-making stage. Traditionally managers, team leads, or
bosses make a decision on their own and then introduce it to the group.
Facilitative leadership is different. The decisions are made together as a
group.
Key Benefits of Facilitative Leadership
◦ Enables self-leadership
◦ Helps employees see and understand the big picture
◦ Increases employee motivation and commitment via
participatory decision making
◦ Helps employees align tasks
◦ Facilitated meetings can help create innovation and
new ideas
◦ Very effective in dealing with complexity
Key Challenges of Facilitative Leadership
◦ Allows idea creation by employees and may seem
chaotic
◦ Requires group facilitation skills to deal with the chaos
of group decision making
PRO’s of being a Facilitative leader
Increased motivation and dedication
Employees are encouraged to participate in the
workplace. Because of this, they will feel a stronger
sense of dedication to the company. When people feel
more invested in the work they are doing, their long-
term motivation will be higher. In addition,
Facilitative Leadership fosters a strong sense of
ownership for the work that is being done. Employees
will perform at a higher level and be motivated to do
the best job they can when they feel a sense of pride in
their efforts.
Encourages innovation
As they say, two heads are better than one. In that spirit, a group of people
may be able to brainstorm ideas and find new solutions to problems that one
person may not have considered. A Facilitative leader encourages these types
of interactions between staff members. Building an environment for
collaboration, rather than competition, can make people more comfortable
proposing new ideas and thinking outside the box.
Building stronger people and teams
Facilitative leaders have an interest in helping the people that work for them
to become better. By actively listening to their employees, they can gain a
better understanding of their needs and areas for improvement. A leader that
is connected to their team will be more effective when it comes to helping
their staff in their personal and professional growth.