Collective Leadership Unleashed: from Concept to a Reality : A Case Study from Dankotuwa Porcelain

Abstract

Can Collective Leadership actually work in a Business Setting ? Will individuals work outside of a hierarchical setting without dismantling the structure and developing a new one ? Can a profit making organisation truly embrace the idea and notion of leadership being completely outside of the titles and designations, and institutionalise leadership teams that are fully responsible and accountable for profits ?Till now, though Collective Leadership has been discussed conceptually, it has largely been something that looked at distributing power, sharing power and collaborating without really having full authority outside of the structures. Though the inverting of the hierarchical pyramid has been discussed as a concept, no organisation has fully implemented it, and given full autonomy for a team to directly influence decisions outside of their hierarchy or purview.Though elements of Collective Leadership has been studied in various non business settings, there is no evidence of Collective Leadership being fully embraced in a private sector setting.This is what makes this case study unique : and truly exciting. It is the first time where a Public Listed Company embraced Collective Leadership fully. It is even more exciting because it has unbelievable results to showcase as well, achieving the best ever financial performance since inception after the adoption of Collective Leadership.The contribution to both academia and practitioners become self evident. The case study opens a new vista of research from both an academic and practitioner perspective to understand how Collective Leadership can be institutionalised, and what key frameworks and elements are needed to be in place for it to work. It will also offer a starting point to investigate Collective Leadership from a practical and implementable perspective, given that there is a success story to begin with, which hitherto was unavailable.