How Co-leadership works – the benefits and challenges

Prospectus is proud to champion co-leadership models and our Executive Search Team have made co-leadership appointments across the Charity Sector from the appointment of Co-Chairs at Youth Music, Charlotte Edgeworth and Isaac Borquaye, to the co-leadership model at Friends of the Earth, Co-CEOs Hugh Knowles and Miriam Turner, who we initially appointed as Co-Directors of Disruptive Innovation.  

Co-leadership involves two or more people sharing a CEO role and is growing in popularity as a way to encourage a high-performing, innovative and collaborative organisational culture, as well as make leadership more inclusive. 

Claire, thank you so much speaking to us today, over to you! 

Claire Antrobus: Thank you very much, and thanks for inviting me! I am a big enthusiast for co-leadership and have been so for over 10 years. This is because when I was working in charities and nonprofits, I thought as someone who had young children at that point, co-leadership would enable me to stay in leadership roles and to job share at a senior level. 

But those opportunities weren’t there sadly, or very few were there at that point in my career. I was a Clore Fellow at that stage, and I undertook some research into where co-leadership existed. It was very established in the theatre sector, and with my background in galleries and museums and my employer at the time, Tate, having some co-leadership too, I started to research why it was useful and how to make it work well.  

I put it on the shelf for 10 years, and whilst I was interested, not much seemed to happen. Then, during the last 5 years or so, increasingly, people have been coming to me as a coach wanting advice about co-leadership. I became aware it was happening a lot again and there was a lot of interest. So last year I undertook a big research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Clore Leadership, looking at co-leadership and specifically how it can enable diversity.  

So, I’ll try and cover what co-leadership is, why people are interested in it and what’s happening around it, in terms of the changes I’m seeing in the job market and for employers in the last couple of years. 

What is co-leadership?  

The structural answer is, it’s a bit like a job share at a senior level. But not exactly because it’s not about splitting a job. It’s about creating a shared leadership role. There’s got to be collaboration at the heart of co-leadership, that’s the difference.  

This is why it’s so exciting for diversity. It’s a difference of experience, a difference of background and a difference of strength. But rooted in a shared vision and shared values. So that’s where the overlap comes in. Practically, in terms of job design, we’re talking about authority to act independently, differentiated lead areas, but joint accountability. Joint reporting lines and overlap need to be minimised because who can afford to have two people doing one job?! But there must be capacity for overlap as well.  

Sometimes co-leadership is two full-time roles. However more commonly, I’m finding it’s often two part-time roles, certainly in nonprofit organisations and often it does take the form of a job share. For organisations introducing co-leadership, not only are they introducing a new leadership model with a slightly different ethos which requires different structures, they’re introducing part-time leadership. This in itself can be quite culturally difficult to introduce I think, in my experience of working with Boards. 

What’s behind this interest in Co-leadership?  

I’ve been involved in co-leadership for about 12 years. It’s my specialist interest. But there’s been a resurgence of interest recently. For example, the Guardian recently shared an article about the appointment of two Artistic Directors at the Royal Shakespeare Company, which is a new model that’s duplicating two roles in a way. 

Another example I used as a case study in my research is Sara and Zak, who were the first joint CEOs of Birmingham Museums – the largest regional museum group. They both work part-time because Zak has young children and Sara has other interests. So, they have a job share in quite a high-profile appointment and lots of people are interested. They are very much in the minority being people of colour in leadership roles in the museum sector at National level. We still have huge issues with underrepresentation. So people are excited about co-leadership as a model.  

Why is there such an interest in Co-leadership?  

When I interviewed the Chair at Birmingham Museums, he said it’s the about the high level of change. Many organisations feel like they can’t carry on with business as usual. We need quite radical transformation in terms of our business models and the way we work with audiences, which isn’t a job for one person. There’s a huge demand on leaders. 

The broader range of skills and backgrounds that you can get through two co-leaders are part of what’s driving this. ‘Two heads are better than one’ is often said, but there’s also a strong case that co-leadership can help tackle the lack of workforce diversity. I think we’re seeing a greater diversity of candidates apply when it’s a co-leadership opportunity. 

Sara and Zak’s role is interesting because it wasn’t advertised as co-leadership. It was advertised as a single leader, and they chose to apply together. They were told at first by the employer that they would prefer them to apply as individuals with one as the Deputy. However, Sara and Zak said, no, it’s either two of us together or not at all! 

It also widens the talent pool. The research I did with candidates suggested that candidates wanted this model for a variety of reasons. I looked at caring responsibilities, disability and ethnicity as diversity issues. 

Additionally, people are saying it’s better for their wellbeing as leaders. People who have left roles are telling me they would have stayed had co-leadership been an option. 

For many organisations, I’m also hearing that it’s about the fit with their mission. It’s about power sharing and collaboration which is part of their ethos, and this model enables and demonstrates it. It models it at a senior level.  

So, there are lots of reasons why organisations are turning to co-leadership. There’s also some evidence in the commercial sector. There was an article in Harvard Business Review that suggests the companies that have gone for this option who are publicly listed, are generating more profit. So that’s quite exciting – there’s a value-for-money argument emerging as well. 

What prevents co-leadership?  

I’ve been aware for about a decade of people wanting to do this, and I’m aware some barriers get in the way, so I explored this in the research. A lot of it’s about the Board attitude fundamentally and awareness of opportunities. Sometimes it’s about the attitudes to part-time leadership. But also, there’s some lack of trust in a model because not everybody’s encountered it yet – how does it work? There are even perhaps some outdated attitudes to what leadership is and the kind of people who are leaders. That leadership doesn’t work if it’s shared – they worry ‘where does the buck stop?’ There’s some unpicking to do about cultural attitudes to leadership, in my experience. 

As I mentioned, often co-leadership hasn’t been advertised. So even though there are plenty of examples of where a role’s been advertised as a single leader, it deters people if the model is not exclusively advertised as being wanted, or if organisations are open to it. In the 11 case studies I looked at, only one was advertised as co-leadership and was appointed as such.  

This was 12 months ago, however, and I think it’s shifting a little now. Two posts were advertised as ‘we’re genuinely flexible and open to new models’, but the vast majority of the co-leadership appointments had been advertised as a single post and the Trustees realised partway through that they couldn’t find one person to do this job and they needed two of the candidates. Or candidates said, “we would like to do this together – please consider us” and that worked! A significant number also came about through internal re-organisation. 

But I think in the last 12 months we’ve seen some big changes. We’re seeing more roles advertised. I know Sandeep and Vicki, who are the Interim Executive Directors at Royal Shakespeare Company. Sandeep was very instrumental in encouraging me to do this research and so I was delighted when Sandeep got appointed into a co-leadership role. 

More appointments are being made and people I speak to are telling me that co-leadership is helping them encourage more diverse candidates to apply. Higher calibre candidates applying, too. Co-leadership suits the ethos of many organisations, in the nonprofit sector in particular. 

I think co-leadership appeals particularly to first-time CEOs, but also to those of us who are later in our careers, who’ve got complex caring responsibilities, health issues or disabilities. I know of leaders who had to step down from solo leadership roles because of caring responsibilities where co-leadership has enabled them to step back into organisational leadership roles. 

What are my reflections about supporting co-leaders?  

I’ve been really excited! Over the last year I’ve coached quite a few co-leaders, and people who are applying for co-leadership roles. This has been an interesting position for me as a researcher to learn from as well. 

I think all co-leadership arrangements are unique, both to the individuals and the context. But there are some common principles. 

When co-leadership is new, we also encounter organisational change because of the leadership transition. I find as a coach who works with teams as well as individuals, co-leadership feels like a leadership team – a micro-team. So some of the techniques I’m using as a coach supporting co-leaders feel like team coaching, which is quite interesting to me! 

And there’s something about equality in co-leadership that can be a catalyst for power inequalities. It brings them to the fore in terms of the relationship, so it needs some careful navigation. It’s not always the right choice for individuals or an organisation. I would never suggest it to prop up a leader who doesn’t have all the skills and experience they need. It’s not about correcting a deficit, it’s not a quick fix to a lack of diversity – it’s about appointing suitably skilled people. Co-leadership is not less demanding than a solo leadership role, although the demands are different. 

I think Boards need to be aware of what they’re taking on and are able to support it. All the Boards I spoke with felt that co-leadership was complex, and they needed to have the skills and the capacity to support co-leaders, particularly in the early stages. 

I think it also has really good development potential. It’s an excellent opportunity for people early in their careers who then might go on to other senior leadership roles. There’s some good peer learning happening. I’ve just set up a peer learning network for co-leaders to learn inter-organisationally. But I think even between themselves, it’s a really good peer-learning model. 

So, to round things off, I just want to highlight where to find further information. I created a website called: https://coleadership.info/ where there is a whole host of resources available for free. There are guides for Boards, academic research, 15 case studies of different organisations of different scales and sectors, along with some evidence about things like profitability and introductory pieces. For example, Sandeep and I did a podcast on ‘How does co-leadership improve diversity?’. 

Thank you so much, Claire, for speaking with us. That was a fascinating topic which we’re so keen to promote through the work that we do here at Prospectus. Thank you so much again and look forward to seeing you soon. 

If you’re interested in finding out more about co-leadership opportunities, do reach out to our Executive Search team at Executive.admin@prospect-us.co.uk. 

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