Network Leadership

7 Our Perspective of Network Leadership

DOI: 10.4324/9781003092582-11

In the preface, we defined network leadership as:

The capability to work across social boundaries, connecting ideas with action and people with resources, in pursuit of shared goals. Leaders who, while open to possibility and opportunity, remain true to the core beliefs of alignment, synergy and restless persuasion.

It is a capacity that exists in the tension between the elements of the Leadership Framework we described in the previous chapter. And in our experience, Network Leaders facilitate network action through four key practices:

1. They understand the social system.
2. They have convening power.
3. They lead beyond their formal and positional authority.
4. They possess the ...