{"id":21396,"date":"2018-12-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global2020prd.wpengine.com\/insights\/boundary-spanning-leadership\/"},"modified":"2020-05-21T13:37:14","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T13:37:14","slug":"boundary-spanning-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/insights\/boundary-spanning-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Boundary spanning leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

As psychologists have been telling us for years, it is human nature for us to create groups and try and stay within them \u2013 whether that be in families, football teams or corporate functions.\u00a0 Yet today\u2019s hyper-connected business world requires us to become \u2018boundary-spanning leaders\u2019.\u00a0 As this is contrary to our in-built human tendencies, this will only happen with positive effort and know-how.<\/p>\n

Research<\/a> by the Centre for Creative Leadership finds that: \u201ctoday\u2019s world calls for a critical transformation in leadership from managing and protecting boundaries to boundary spanning\u2014 the capability to create direction, alignment, and commitment across boundaries in service of a higher vision or goal.\u201d \u00a0This is true for matrix organizations, but also any networked organization aiming to deliver a superb customer experience through joined up working (which, let\u2019s face it, should be all of us).<\/p>\n

Leaders at all levels need to learn how to span horizontal, geographic, demographic, stakeholder and vertical boundaries, according to the themes that came out of their research with senior executives.<\/p>\n

They unearthed a critical gap between how important boundary spanning leadership is, and how effective the different levels of management are at currently doing it (see figure below):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How would you rate the importance vs. effectiveness of boundary-spanning leadership in your organization? What about for yourself?<\/p>\n

As we can see, the biggest gap tends to be at the level of middle management – where a big transition has to occur between gunning for the success of your individual team, to seeing how your work fits within the big picture and learning how to build connections across all parts of your matrix organization and beyond.<\/p>\n

People who shine as individual contributors or team leads don\u2019t necessarily have this as an in-built tendency \u2013 but these are skills that can be learnt.\u00a0 We use a tool called \u2018Network map\u2019 to help our matrix participants visualize their close and wider networks, and to identify which key relationships they need to develop further and how best to spend their precious time.<\/p>\n

The top 3 \u2018boundary spanning\u2019 skill gaps identified by the CCL research were:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Cross-functional working<\/li>\n
  2. Global vs local mindset<\/li>\n
  3. Cross-generational learning<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Which of these gaps are most pertinent to your team?<\/p>\n

    This last point is particularly relevant in the current digital revolution.\u00a0 A number of our clients have formalized \u2018reverse mentor\u2019 relationships, where younger, more tech-savvy middle managers are mentoring senior leaders on how they can better harness technology and drive digital transformation.<\/p>\n

    As always there\u2019s a tension in a matrix organization between how much time to spend building networks, communicating across silos and seeking diverse input \u2013 and getting your head down and focusing on a particular task.\u00a0 A 2018 paper<\/a> by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) argues that to thrive in today\u2019s hyper-connected organizations we need to be developing both our curiosity and concentration. The trick is to know when and how to ramp up either skill.<\/p>\n

    Check out an interactive graphic of our matrix management learning path and training module contents<\/a>.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As psychologists have been telling us for years, it is human nature for us to create groups and try and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":21397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-21396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","type-blog","training-matrix-management","training-virtual-teams"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBoundary spanning leadership - Global Integration<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As psychologists have been telling us for years, it is human nature for us to create groups and try and stay within them \u2013 whether that be in families,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/insights\/boundary-spanning-leadership\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Boundary spanning leadership\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As psychologists have been telling us for years, it is human nature for us to create groups and try and stay within them \u2013 whether that be in families,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/insights\/boundary-spanning-leadership\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Global Integration\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-12-04T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-05-21T13:37:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/adult-brainstorming-business-1181622-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1709\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Debbie Marshall-Lee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Debbie Marshall-Lee\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/boundary-spanning-leadership\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/boundary-spanning-leadership\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Debbie Marshall-Lee\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/1fa12bfdb63cb06a915dc1478d791465\"},\"headline\":\"Boundary spanning leadership\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-12-04T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-05-21T13:37:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/boundary-spanning-leadership\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":510,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/boundary-spanning-leadership\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/03\\\/adult-brainstorming-business-1181622-scaled.webp\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/boundary-spanning-leadership\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/boundary-spanning-leadership\\\/\",\"name\":\"Boundary spanning leadership - 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